Doctor Critical of CDC Appointed Second in Command at Agency

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a new principal deputy director—a doctor who has criticized the agency for spreading misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic and spoken out against some vaccines.

Dr. Ralph Abraham, who was Louisiana’s surgeon general, has been hired as the CDC’s second-in-command, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) told The Epoch Times in an email on Nov. 26.

Abraham did not respond to a request for comment.

The CDC is currently headed by Jim O’Neill. The deputy secretary of HHS, the CDC’s parent agency, is serving as acting CDC director following President Donald Trump’s termination of Susan Monarez as CDC director in August, about one month after she was confirmed by the Senate.

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Monarez was fired because she would not confirm she was open to accepting recommendations from the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel, while Monarez said she would approve panel recommendations provided they were grounded in science.

Abraham, 71, was a member of the House of Representatives from 2015 to 2021. He became Louisiana’s surgeon general in early 2024.

Abraham told a state legislative panel that year that he had practiced medicine for a few decades and estimated he treated around 20,000 patients with COVID-19 during the pandemic.

Abraham said he found success utilizing ivermectin and other drugs that were being used off-label, or for COVID-19 despite being approved for other purposes. Federal officials advised using approved treatments such as remdesivir and against using ivermectin.

Abraham also said that policies imposed by many states with backing from the CDC, including mask and vaccine mandates and forced closures of businesses and schools, were ineffective and counterproductive. He singled out social distancing guidance, or maintaining six feet from others, which came from the CDC and was later described by top government officials as having “just sort of appeared” and likely not being based on science or data.

“CDC gave out information that wasn’t accurate,” Abraham said.

The CDC also widely promoted, until this year, COVID-19 vaccination as safe and effective for virtually all Americans. Abraham said the decline in trust in doctors, recorded in various surveys, stemmed from poor advice, including the recommendation that children receive a COVID-19 vaccine even though the illness posed little risk to healthy kids.

“In this case, risk always outweighed any possible benefit,” he said, adding later that he was seeing people injured by vaccines every day in his practice.

In February, Louisiana officials stopped promoting mass vaccination. Abraham wrote in a letter at the time that the state was shifting away from the “one-size-fits-all, collectivist mentality whose main objective is maximal compliance.” In September, he said that he viewed the tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis vaccine as “one of the least controversial” shots, because it is effective and generally has a good safety profile.

Abraham has also endorsed several changes made or floated by Trump administration officials, including breaking up the measles, mumps, rubella combination shot into separate vaccines, removing aluminum from vaccines, avoiding Tylenol if pregnant, and not administering hepatitis B vaccines to infants unless their mothers test positive for the disease.

Lawrence Gostin, faculty director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University, said on X that he viewed Abraham’s appointment as irresponsible.

“As Louisiana Surgeon General, he cancelled vaccine campaigns. He’s a major prescriber of ivermectin for COVID-19. Dr. Abraham is likely to further erode the credibility of the CDC,” Gostin said.

Dr. Joseph Marine, a cardiologist in Maryland, disagreed, writing on X that Abraham “believes in personal choice, informed consent, and shared decision-making.” He added, “He will probably reach more vaccine ‘skeptics’ with this approach than heavy-handed coercion, scapegoating, and shaming.”