As head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has promised to lead with “ radical transparency ,” follow “gold-standard science,” and maintain vaccine access. But top officials at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) tell TIME that Kennedy has done only the opposite—prompting them to resign in late August from the agency. Their accounts include previously unreported details about the turmoil unfolding at one of the nation’s leading health agencies.

Kennedy has repeatedly sidelined CDC officials, ignored established research, circumvented scientific protocols, and pushed a vaccine agenda rooted in ideology and not science, say Dr. Debra Houry, CDC’s former chief medical officer; Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, the agency’s ex-vaccin

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