Trump-Appointed CDC Deputy Director Jennifer Shuford to Resign After Six Months

The deputy director and chief medical officer of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Dr Jennifer Shuford, will resign after six months on the job, according to an agency email.

Dr Shuford was appointed by Donald Trump in April as part of a four-person senior leadership team.

The appointments were meant to stabilize the agency after the previous CDC director, Susan Monarez, left less than a month into the job, publicly describing the directives of health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr as 'unscientific'.

In a statement sent via email by CDC director Dr Erica Schwartz, Shuford said: 'I am leaving to spend more time with my family.' She said: 'I am so thankful to President Trump and Secretary Kennedy for giving me the opportunity to help lead CDC. It has been an amazing experience, and I will be forever grateful for it.'

Shuford is expected to leave her post on 12 November, after the midterm elections.

The deputy director was appointed as part of a four-person team in April, alongside Schwartz and two other top leaders. Shuford's appointment was cheered by public health leaders such as the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO), who would have known her work as Texas health commissioner.

Trump described the team in a social media post as 'Highly Respected Doctors of Medicine [who] have the knowledge, experience, and TOP degrees to restore the GOLD STANDARD OF SCIENCE at the CDC'.

In the time since Shuford has worked at the agency, Kennedy has made significant changes that the report said undermine vaccine trust and access. In recent examples, Kennedy fired all 17 of the CDC's expert vaccine advisory panel members and replaced them with ideologically aligned appointees, slow-walked death updates to the agency's measles dashboard, and forced the CDC to publicly contradict scientific consensus on vaccines and autism – a change the Autism Science Foundation said left it 'appalled'.

At the same time, the agency has lost one-third of its workforce and 48 distinct measles outbreaks have roiled the US, particularly in Pennsylvania. The overwhelming majority of Americans – including Maha supporters – trust vaccines, the report said.

Schwartz said in the email announcing Shuford's departure: 'I am deeply grateful for Dr Shuford's outstanding leadership and commitment to CDC and public health, especially as she has navigated an exceptionally demanding, high-profile, and constantly evolving environment over the past several months.' Dr Satish Pillai will serve as acting deputy director and chief medical officer as the team searches for a successor to Shuford.