CDC Leaders And Staff Express Fear, Anger, And Resolve After Shooting
In a call with employees, agency brass told employees that the attack on the office complex was deliberate: “This was not stray bullets.” Employees are calling for the resignation of HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who one says is “propagating misinformation and distrust.” Law enforcement sources say the suspect might have blamed his health concerns on the covid-19 vaccine.
CNN:
CDC Leaders Call Shooting Targeted And Deliberate As Rattled Staff Say They Felt Like ‘Sitting Ducks’
In a large and hastily arranged Zoom call on Saturday, about 800 rattled staffers with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tried to make sense of the trauma they endured just a day earlier when a gunman opened fire on the agency’s buildings from across the street. They had been winding down for the weekend when more than 40 bullets smashed through their office windows, whizzing just over their cubicle walls and petrifying staffers in at least four buildings. (Faheld, Goodman and Tirrell, 8/11)
Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
CDC Employees In Atlanta Speak About Shooting, Lingering Fears
Dr. Elizabeth Soda felt helpless as she frantically messaged her co-workers Friday once a gunman had opened fire on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The 40-year-old, who works at the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, had just left her CDC office 30 minutes before the shooting. Now her colleagues were stuck and barricaded inside. (Aaro, 8/10)
ABC News:
Suspected Gunman In CDC Shooting Had Grievance Toward Covid Vaccine: Sources
The man suspected of opening fire on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's sprawling campus late Friday had blamed the COVID-19 vaccine for making him sick and depressed, according to information gathered by law enforcement and sources close to the suspect. The investigation remains ongoing, and officials caution that the information is preliminary at this time. Patrick White is believed to have struggled with his mental health, according to that information. As he grappled with those issues, sources said, White had become increasingly fixated on the COVID-19 vaccine as a source of his grievances. (Abubey, Pezenik and Margolin, 8/10)
AP:
Union Wants Statement Against COVID Vaccine Misinformation After CDC Shooting
A union representing workers at the CDC said the incident was not random and “compounds months of mistreatment, neglect, and vilification that CDC staff have endured.” It demanded federal officials condemn vaccine misinformation, saying it was putting scientists at risk. Fired But Fighting, a group of laid-off CDC employees, has said HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is directly responsible for the villainization of CDC’s workforce through “his continuous lies about science and vaccine safety, which have fueled a climate of hostility and mistrust.” (Haigh, 8/10)
Politico:
Trump's Former Surgeon General Blasts Kennedy For 'Tepid' Response To CDC Shootings
A former U.S. surgeon general on Sunday said Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “failed” in his response to the shootings that took place on Friday at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters in Atlanta. “How you respond to a crisis defines a leader, and quite frankly Secretary Kennedy has failed in his first major test in this regard,” Dr. Jerome Adams told CBS’ Margaret Brennan on “Face the Nation.” (Daniels, 8/10)
KFF Health News and Healthbeat:
Inside The CDC, Shooting Adds To Trauma As Workers Describe Projects, Careers In Limbo
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention workers whose jobs have been reinstated after dizzying Trump administration disruptions say they remain stuck in a budgetary, political, and professional limbo. Their work includes major agency priorities such as HIV testing and monitoring, as well as work at the nation’s leading sexually transmitted infections lab. And while employees are back, many projects have been canceled or stalled, as funding disappears or is delayed. (Miller and Grapevine, 8/11)
