Top doctors and scientists at the leading U.S. public health agencies are “frustrated, exasperated and alarmed” about the direction of the agencies they work for, according to the authors of a Substack post published last week. They’re also embarrassed — about “bad science.” And many are leaving. “It’s like a horror movie I’m being forced to watch and I can’t close my eyes,” said one senior official with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). “People are getting bad advice and we can’t say anything.”
The comment was one of many culled from calls and text messages between officials and the article’s co-authors, Marty Makary M.D., M.P.H., and Tracy Beth Høeg M.D., Ph.D. Makary and Høeg said the officials who spoke to them agreed to be quoted — but only anonymously, for fear of professional repercussions. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are plagued with “low morale” and “high turnover,” officials told Makary and Høeg.
“At the NIH, doctors and scientists complain to us about low morale and lower staffing: The NIH’s Vaccine Research Center has had many of its senior scientists leave over the last year, including the director, deputy director and chief medical officer,” they wrote.