On August 8, 2025, a sense of terror and disbelief swept across the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) main campus in Atlanta. As the workday was winding down, a gunman unleashed more than 500 rounds onto the federal agency’s grounds, striking six buildings and leaving employees scrambling for safety—some barricading themselves in offices, others hiding in closets or crouching under their desks. The violence claimed the life of 33-year-old police officer David Rose, who responded to the scene, before the shooter turned the gun on himself. It was a moment that, as Dr. Fiona Havers, a former CDC official, described to NPR, marked a “major event” for the nation’s public health community.
The attack, according to authorities and corroborated by interviews with the gunman’s family reported by Atlanta News First, was motivated by the shooter’s deep discontent with COVID vaccines. Written documents found in his home revealed that he believed he had been harmed by the vaccine and that it was injuring others as well. The tragedy, while shocking in its violence, did not come as a complete surprise to some CDC staffers. Years of politicization and the spread of misinformation about vaccines—especially during the COVID pandemic—had, in their view, created a climate ripe for such an incident.
Just days after the shooting, Dr. Elizabeth Soda, an infectious diseases physician with the CDC’s National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, returned to the campus to retrieve her laptop. “I never dreamed I’d see CDC in that state, never dreamed I’d see bullet holes,” she told NPR, speaking in her personal capacity. Soda had left the campus just 30 minutes before the attack and was frantically texting colleagues during the ordeal. “Initially, I was shocked,” she said, “but now that I’ve sat and thought about it, it’s not surprising.”
In the aftermath, the CDC community, joined by colleagues from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other federal health agencies, rallied together in a call for leadership and protection. On August 20, more than 750 current and former federal health workers sent a letter to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and members of Congress. Their message was pointed and urgent: they accused Kennedy of contributing to the harassment and violence experienced by government employees, which they said culminated in the Atlanta attack.
“The deliberate destruction of trust in America’s public health workforce puts lives at risk. We urge you to act in the best interest of the American people—your friends, your families, and yourselves,” the letter stated, as reported by Axios. The signatories charged Kennedy with being “complicit in dismantling America’s public health infrastructure and endangering the nation’s health by repeatedly spreading inaccurate health information.” They cited his actions, such as ousting members of a CDC vaccine advisory board, questioning the safety of the measles vaccine, and terminating critical CDC workers, as contributing factors to the current climate of hostility and fear.
The letter didn’t stop at assigning blame. It demanded that Kennedy affirm the CDC’s non-partisan and scientific integrity, improve emergency procedures and alerts, and take “vigorous action” to remove online material targeting federal workers—including so-called “DEI watchlists.” The workers asked for a response from Kennedy by September 2, 2025.
For many signatories, the stakes were personal and immediate. Ian Morgan, a postdoctoral fellow at the NIH and one of the letter’s signers, told NPR, “Even though this attack happened at the CDC in Georgia, this affects all federal workers. We’re standing in solidarity with our CDC colleagues, but we know we are also at risk.” He noted that security and police presence had increased at the NIH campus in Maryland following the shooting. “That’s great,” Morgan said, “but when you have people from the top who are putting a target on your back, how can you feel safe going to work every day?”
The letter’s authors detailed their concerns about recent changes in leadership and policy. They argued that the spread of inaccurate claims about vaccines, barriers to purchasing supplies and communicating with the public, and major reductions to staff and programs had all “put the lives of the American people at risk.” As Morgan put it, “Our jobs as federal workers are to improve the health of the American people, but we’re being kept from doing that.”
In the days after the attack, Secretary Kennedy did travel to Atlanta to tour the CDC campus. He met with the CDC director and security staff, and visited the widow of Officer Rose, the slain police officer. According to a statement emailed by HHS to NPR on August 20, “Secretary Kennedy is standing firmly with CDC employees—both on the ground and across every center—ensuring their safety and well-being remain a top priority…Any attempt to conflate widely supported public health reforms with the violence of a suicidal mass shooter is an attempt to politicize a tragedy.” The statement continued, “In the wake of this heartbreaking shooting, [Kennedy] traveled to Atlanta to offer his support and reaffirm his deep respect, calling the CDC ‘a shining star among global health agencies.’ For the first time in its 70-year history, the mission of HHS is truly resonating with the American people—driven by President Trump and Secretary Kennedy’s bold commitment to Make America Healthy Again.”
Yet, CDC employees and other federal health workers have expressed frustration that Kennedy’s response has not included an explicit acknowledgment of the role misinformation played in motivating the shooter, nor a full-throated defense of the CDC’s mission. In an interview with Scripps News days after the attack, Kennedy said, “Public health agencies have not been honest,” and argued that “trusting the experts is not a feature of science or democracy, it’s a feature of totalitarianism and of religion.” He also claimed that government officials were “saying things that were not always true” to “persuade the public to get vaccinated” during the COVID pandemic.
For Dr. Havers and many of her colleagues, the rhetoric coming from the highest levels of government has only fueled the sense of danger. “The fact that the inflammatory rhetoric and misinformation about COVID vaccines is now coming from the HHS Secretary and from the administration has fueled it and given it legitimacy it may not have had before,” she told NPR.
The letter from HHS employees—signed by hundreds across multiple agencies—is a rare and public rebuke of a sitting cabinet official, reflecting a deep sense of unease and a demand for change. As the September 2 deadline for Kennedy’s response approaches, federal health workers are watching closely, hoping for a shift in tone and a renewed commitment to science, safety, and the public good.
In the wake of tragedy, the nation’s public health workforce finds itself at a crossroads, caught between political headwinds and the urgent need to protect both its own members and the communities it serves. The coming weeks will test whether leadership can rise to meet the moment—or whether the rift between science and politics will continue to widen.
