A top Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official who resigned from the agency on Thursday responded to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt after she bashed him for using the term “pregnant people” in his resignation letter.
“One of those individuals wrote in his departure statement that he identifies pregnant women as pregnant people, so that’s not someone who we want in this administration,” Leavitt told reporters at a press conference Thursday.
Leavitt’s comment was in clear reference to the resignation letter of Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, in which he stated, “the recent change in the adult and children’s immunization schedule threaten the lives of the youngest Americans and pregnant people.”
Daskalakis resigned alongside Drs. Deb Houry and Dan Jernigan, two other top officials who criticized Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s changes to the agency’s vaccine advisory board and other vaccine policies.
Their resignations came shortly after Susan Monarez was fired from her position as CDC director, amid several other changes within the health department.
