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Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been busy putting his stamp on his department. His tenure has resulted in the firing of many scientists and administrators. In addition, there have been reports of widespread walkouts. Here are some of the agency leaders who resigned recently. 

• Dr. Debra Houry, CDC’s chief medical officer and deputy director for program and science.
• Dr. Jennifer Layden, director of the CDC’s Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance, and Technology.
• Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.
• Dr. Daniel Jernigan, director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases.

HHS has a goal of eliminating approximately 10,000 jobs. This is on top of the 10,000 employees who resigned voluntarily. It is only a matter of time before we collectively experience a pandemic or some other natural disaster where an efficient and effective Department of Health and Human Services will be badly needed. We can’t count on that anymore. 

While you’re here enjoying DonkeyHotey’s latest cartoon, please take a moment to read these articles on related topics: 

• RFK Jr. Is a One-Trick Pony
• A Tale of Two Crises: What We Learned and Didn’t Learn From 9/11 and COVID
• Other DonkeyHotey cartoons

The cartoon above was created by DonkeyHotey for WhoWhatWhy from these images: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. caricature (DonkeyHotey / Flickr – CC BY 2.0), body (Secretary Kennedy / Twitter – PD), logo (CDC / Wikimedia – PD), and building (Ben Schumin / Wikimedia – CC BY-SA 2.0).