The Trump administration’s new second-in-command leader at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution this week that he’s looking forward, not backward.
Dr. Ralph Abraham started work as principal deputy director of the Atlanta-based CDC on Jan. 5.
Abraham, 71, was surgeon general of Louisiana, where he canceled that state’s long-standing mass vaccination promotion program. Under his tenure, Louisiana waited months before alerting the public that a whooping cough outbreak had killed two children and vaccinations should be discussed with their doctors.
Abraham said he respects local public health agencies and wants to help restore trust from the general public.
When it comes to the morale at the CDC after a year of unpredictable firings, gutted funding and gun violence, Abraham said employees he’d met so far were welcoming and resilient.
Asked about efforts to root out racially biased science, Abraham said in his own practice he’d seen disparities based on rural access to care, not race.
“I say it over and over: I’ve never met anybody that wanted to be sick and I’ve never met anybody that wanted to be poor,” he said. “That has nothing to do with DEI, but it does have something to do with access.”
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Abraham made headlines this week at a news conference held on the anniversary of the first confirmed measles case in last year’s West Texas outbreak. If the current outbreaks in the Carolinas are linked to that one, it could mean the U.S. could lose its status of eliminating measles.
“You know, it’s just the cost of doing business, with our borders being somewhat porous (and) global and international travel,” Abraham said at the news conference.
Some health leaders called those comments “appalling,” or his appointment “dangerous.”
On Wednesday, Abraham added to those comments, saying the U.S. measles rates were still lower than in Canada, Mexico and Europe.
“During the prior administration, our borders were very porous,” Abraham told the AJC. “And we had people coming across that were undocumented and that, you know, carried diseases.”
Measles elimination status happens domestically, when cases flare out on their own because there are so few unvaccinated people to transmit it to.
A measles outbreak with more than 600 cases has been raging in South Carolina around Spartanburg County since October, and North Carolina has announced several cases as well.
Abraham said he is waiting for genome sequencing to double-check the origin of the outbreaks.
Unlike his bosses, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a lawyer and CDC Acting Director Jim O’Neill, an investor, Abraham holds a medical degree.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Abraham was first a veterinarian in rural Louisiana and then went to medical school. He served three terms in Congress, then lost a race for governor.
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry made Abraham the state’s Secretary of Health for about six months and then created the surgeon general position and moved Abraham into it in 2024.
At the CDC, Abraham said that he was “blown away” by the longevity of so many workers he’d met.
“For any federal agency or state agency or any private business to be able to hold … that many employees for that many years says something good about it,” he said.
Abraham has protested vaccination mandates and said the COVID-19 vaccine was more dangerous than not to healthy children, contrary to the scientific findings that led to its recommendation.
The CDC announcement of Abraham’s appointment said he “will help realign the agency with its mission as America’s front line defender against infectious disease.”
Anne Schuchat, a CDC retiree who also served in the same principal deputy director position, said its role can change depending on what the director wants. In her era, she said, the principal deputy director led on science- and program-related agency-wide matters for the CDC, while other leaders focused on leading technical operations or external relationships.
About the Author
Keep Reading
The Latest
Featured
