Out Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, who recently resigned from his leadership role at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) due to the current administration’s mismanagement of public health, accused his former boss, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr., of lying to Congress in an interview yesterday with CNN. Kennedy has faced widespread criticism for his combative appearance at a Senate Finance hearing yesterday.

“The head of the health agency for the United States is actively standing before Congress and making things up,” Daskalakis said. “He did not tell the truth.”

Related

GOP senator rages at outgoing gay CDC vaccine leader for talking about “his lifestyle”

Insights for the LGBTQ+ community

Subscribe to our briefing for insights into how politics impacts the LGBTQ+ community and more.
Subscribe to our Newsletter today

“So, you’re saying he lied to Congress?” CNN host Kaitlan Collins asked.

“Yes, he lied to Congress,” Daskalaskis said.

“Wow,” she responded.

Among the lies that he said Kennedy told was a strange moment when Kennedy said he asked former CDC director Susan Monarez if she was “trustworthy,” and she told him, “No.” The president appointed Monarez in March of this year, and Kennedy had previously defended her work.

“I told her she had to resign because I asked her, ‘Are you a trustworthy person?’ and she said ‘No,’” Kennedy said at the Senate Finance hearing.

Monarez’s lawyers say that Kennedy lied there and that she was actually fired because she refused to go along with Kennedy’s plans to overhaul vaccination policy in the United States.

Daskalakis said that Monarez told him that she had been banned from participating in vaccine strategies at the agency prior to her being fired.

“I believe Susan, I do not believe the secretary,” Daskalakis said, adding that he doesn’t believe that she would just plain say that she is not trustworthy. “It would be very strange for someone to say ‘no.'”

Daskalakis then brought up Kennedy’s claim that he is regularly briefed by people at the CDC on vaccines.

“He is not briefed by anyone at the Immunization Center,” Daskalakis said. “The person that he mentioned does not work at the Immunization Center. It is not possible that that person briefed him on measles or on flu or on polio or on vaccines since that individual does not work anywhere in that environment.”

“That was not true.”

Collins asked Daskalakis if he’s talking with his former colleagues about the Senate Finance hearing, and he said that he is and that “we were just stunned at the number of mistruths that we heard.” He then listed even more alleged lies Kennedy told.

Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.