5 high-level CDC officials are leaving in the latest turmoil for the public health agency

NEW YORK — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was rocked by five high-level departures on Tuesday in the latest turmoil for the nation’s top public health agency.

The departures were announced at a meeting of agency senior leaders. The Atlanta-based CDC has two dozen centers and offices. The heads of five of them are stepping down, and that follows three other departures in recent weeks. This means close to a third of the agency’s top management is leaving or left recently.

The departures — described as retirements — were not announced publicly. The Associated Press confirmed the news with two CDC officials who were not authorized to discuss it and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The announcements come a day after the White House announced it is nominating Susan Monarez to be CDC director. But it’s not clear how much, if any, influence that had on the leaders' decision to leave. The Trump administration earlier this month withdrew its nomination of former Florida congressman Dr. David Weldon just before a Senate hearing.

The latest departures include:

— Leslie Ann Dauphin, who oversees the Public Health Infrastructure Center and its more than 500 employees. That center coordinates CDC funding, strategy, and technical assistance to state, local and territorial health departments.

— Dr. Karen Remley, who heads the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities. At the beginning of the year, the center had more than 220 full-time employees.

— Sam Posner, who heads the Office of Science. More than 100 CDC employees work on research and science policy, and publish the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

— Debra Lubar, who runs the 65-person Office of Policy, Performance and Evaluation.

— Leandris Liburd, head of the Office of Health Equity, with about 40 employees. Liburd took the role in 2020, as part of an effort to address the COVID-19 pandemic’s disproportionate death toll on Black, Hispanic and Native Americans.

Adding to that: Kevin Griffis, head of CDC communications, left last week. Robin Bailey, the agency’s chief operating officer, left late last month. So did Dr. Nirav Shah, a former CDC principal deputy director who last year was the agency’s primary voice about an evolving bird flu epidemic in animals that has also sickened at least 70 people in the U.S.

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