Dr Shuford said in a statement that she was leaving “to spend more time with my family” and expressed gratitude to President Trump and Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr for the opportunity to help lead the CDC. The email announcing her departure was sent by CDC director Dr Erica Schwartz, who thanked Shuford for her leadership in an “exceptionally demanding, high-profile, and constantly evolving environment”.
Shuford was part of a four-person senior leadership team appointed in April to stabilise the agency after the previous director, Susan Monarez, left less than a month into the job, publicly describing Kennedy’s directives as “unscientific”. Trump described the team as “Highly Respected Doctors of Medicine” who would restore the “GOLD STANDARD OF SCIENCE” at the CDC.
During Shuford’s tenure, Kennedy made significant changes that have undermined vaccine trust and access. He fired all 17 members of the CDC’s expert vaccine advisory panel and replaced them with ideologically aligned appointees, slow-walked death updates to the agency’s measles dashboard, and forced the CDC to publicly contradict scientific consensus on vaccines and autism. The Autism Science Foundation said the change left it “appalled”. The agency has lost one-third of its workforce, and 48 distinct measles outbreaks have occurred across the US, particularly in Pennsylvania.
Dr Satish Pillai will serve as acting deputy director and chief medical officer while the agency searches for a successor.