{"id":10898,"date":"2025-11-26T18:08:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T00:08:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=10898"},"modified":"2025-11-26T18:08:18","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T00:08:18","slug":"what-to-know-about-the-new-cdc-deputy-director-who-has-been-critical-of-covid-vaccines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2025\/11\/26\/what-to-know-about-the-new-cdc-deputy-director-who-has-been-critical-of-covid-vaccines\/","title":{"rendered":"What to know about the new CDC deputy director who has been critical of COVID vaccines"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/Health\/new-cdc-deputy-director-critical-covid-vaccines\/story?id=127891520\">ABC News<\/a> A top Louisiana health official has been appointed principal deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With no permanent director of the CDC, Dr. Ralph Abraham, Louisiana&#8217;s surgeon general, will be the highest ranked official at the agency with a medical degree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ousted the former director, Susan Monarez, earlier this year after she refused to preemptively greenlight vaccine recommendations from the agency&#8217;s advisory panel. Jim O&#8217;Neill, Kennedy&#8217;s deputy, currently serves as the acting CDC director. Abraham, a Republican, served as a member of the House of Representatives from 2015 to 2021 before becoming the Louisiana surgeon general in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As a physician and veterinarian, Abraham has been accused by some health experts of spreading misinformation about COVID-19 vaccine and unproven treatments. In addition, he prevented his state&#8217;s health department from promoting vaccination efforts.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ABC News A top Louisiana health official has been appointed principal deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). With no permanent director of the CDC, Dr. Ralph Abraham, Louisiana&#8217;s surgeon general, will be the highest ranked official at the agency with a medical degree. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health-policy"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10898"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10898\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10899,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10898\/revisions\/10899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}