The quiet of a Friday morning at the headquarters of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta was shattered on August 8, 2025, when a hail of gunfire erupted outside the agency’s campus. By the time the chaos subsided, DeKalb County Police Officer David Rose lay dead, and the shooter, 30-year-old Patrick Joseph White, had died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. This shocking act, authorities later confirmed, was driven by White’s anger over COVID-19 vaccinations—a sentiment he had reportedly expressed in writing and in conversations leading up to the attack.
According to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, White had also verbalized suicidal thoughts several weeks before the shooting, prompting earlier law enforcement contact. But the deadly incident at the CDC was not an isolated event. It marked the latest and most violent episode in a troubling trend: hostility, harassment, and even violence directed at health care workers, fueled by misinformation and deepening public mistrust of vaccines since the start of the pandemic.
As the community reeled, flowers, balloons, and thank-you notes piled up at the CDC entrance in memory of Officer Rose and in support of CDC staff. Down the street at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health, a rally organized by Georgia Majority for Gun Safety and Georgia Clinicians for Gun Safety brought together public health workers, gun safety advocates, and community members. Their message was clear: the attack was not just a tragedy, but a symptom of a wider crisis—a “culture of misinformation” that endangers both public health and those who work to protect it.
“All of us, anybody who stands up for science or vaccines, will at some level get hate mail or a phone call that’s unnerving or a death threat,” said Paul Offit, co-inventor of a rotavirus vaccine, as quoted by the Associated Press. Offit, who leads the vaccine education center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, described how the distrust and anger that exploded during the pandemic has only grown, amplified by high-profile voices in government and media.
One of those voices is U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose rhetoric and policy decisions have become a lightning rod for criticism. Kennedy, who toured the CDC campus on Monday, August 11, condemned the violence, stating, “No one should face violence while working to protect the health of others.” He added, “We are actively supporting CDC staff on the ground and across the agency. We honor their service. We stand with them. And we remain united in our mission to protect and improve the health of every American,” as posted on X (formerly Twitter).
Yet Kennedy did not shy away from criticizing the CDC’s handling of the pandemic and the government’s vaccine messaging. In a television interview with Scripps News, he said, “One of the things that we saw during COVID is that the government was overreaching in its efforts to persuade the public to get vaccinated, and they were saying things that are not always true.” Kennedy’s spokesperson, Andrew Nixon at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, rejected the idea that the secretary’s stance had fueled the shooting, calling such a narrative “pure fiction, built on anonymous complaints and a willful disregard for the facts.” Nixon insisted, “Secretary Kennedy is not advancing an ‘anti-vaccine agenda’—he is advancing a pro-safety, pro-transparency, and pro-accountability agenda.”
But many public health advocates and former CDC employees see it differently. At Tuesday’s rally, Dr. Ben Lopman, an epidemiologist and former CDC staffer, argued that “misinformation about vaccines has reached the highest levels in our government and society” under the current administration. He added, “RFK Jr. was arguably the nation’s leading anti-vaccine activist before being elevated to HHS secretary. These wrong ideas are now embedded in everyday conversations, as well as official policy.”
Indeed, Kennedy’s tenure has been marked by controversial moves, including the dismissal of all 17 members of a key CDC vaccine panel earlier this year. He replaced them with eight hand-picked appointees, many of whom are seen as vaccine skeptics. The new panel later voted to ban thimerosal, a preservative used in a small portion of flu vaccines, a decision critics say pandered to conspiracy theories about vaccine safety. Kennedy also terminated 22 grants, including one at Emory University, as part of what he described as a “coordinated wind-down” of research into mRNA vaccine technology—technology that had played a pivotal role in the COVID-19 response and earned a Nobel Prize in 2023.
For those working inside the CDC, the attack has left a deep scar. Employees were asked to remove old CDC parking decals from their vehicles for safety, and some had already stopped wearing their public health uniforms to avoid being targeted. Yolanda Jacobs, a union leader representing CDC workers, noted these precautions had become necessary long before the shooting. The agency’s new director, Dr. Susan Monarez, addressed staff at an all-hands meeting on August 12, underscoring the gravity of the moment: “We know that misinformation can be dangerous. Not only to health, but to those that trust us and those we want to trust. No act of violence can diminish our mission to protect public health.”
Sarah Boim, a former CDC worker whose job was targeted for elimination earlier this year, was blunt in her assessment: “What happened on Friday is a direct result of that misinformation. Health Secretary Kennedy is one of the biggest pushers of misinformation.” She described the emotional impact, saying, “The shooting left me in tears. My friends and family still work in those buildings. My mom works in one of those buildings.”
The CDC is now reassessing security protocols and encouraging staff to report any threats, particularly those arising from misinformation about vaccines. The sense of vulnerability is not limited to Atlanta. The CDC, tasked with tracking diseases and responding to health threats, has been battered by staff cuts, resignations, and controversy over its vaccine policies—turmoil that many trace back to the broader climate of distrust and hostility.
Sadly, the CDC shooting is not without precedent. In 2019, California state Senator Richard Pan, a pediatrician and vaccine advocate, was assaulted by an anti-vaccine activist while streaming the attack live on Facebook. Another incident saw blood thrown at Pan and other lawmakers after Kennedy spoke outside the California Capitol, with posters behind him branding Pan a “LIAR.” Pan now draws a direct line from those events to the violence in Atlanta: “And you wonder why someone would go shoot up the CDC,” Pan remarked. “Because he basically told them that those are the people you should hurt.”
Beyond the debate over vaccines, the Atlanta shooting has reignited calls for action on gun safety. Heather Hallett, founder of Georgia Majority for Gun Safety, highlighted the state’s troubling statistics: “Georgia is among the bottom third of state gun violence rates in a country that is doing poorly across developed nations. So we are really in a unique position in terms of the way gun violence impacts us.” Despite over a dozen bills introduced in the 2025 legislative session, none were passed before lawmakers adjourned. “Lawmakers are aware of the evidence and the arguments,” said Dr. Mike Greenwald, co-chair of Georgia Clinicians for Gun Safety. “What holds them back is likely a political calculus.”
In response, Georgia Clinicians for Gun Safety and Georgia Majority for Gun Safety plan to launch a new public information campaign on gun safety in September 2025, hoping to shift the conversation and prevent future tragedies.
The CDC campus attack stands as a stark reminder of the dangers posed by misinformation and political polarization—threats that can leap from heated rhetoric to deadly violence in the blink of an eye.