explore -WSS

explore

author：leisure time 2025-10-02 18:46:56 - browse：8

Demetre Daskalakis, who has spent the past year in Washington as deputy director of the White House’s mpox response, was named acting director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images

The new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Mandy Cohen, is overhauling the leadership of the CDC center that led the agency’s Covid-19 response.

In an announcement to staff issued Tuesday, Cohen said José Romero, who headed the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases for the past 14 months, would be leaving the CDC at the end of August.

“I want to thank him for his service to this agency and our country,” Cohen said in the memo to staff, a copy of which was obtained by STAT.

Replacing Romero, at least on an acting basis, is Demetre Daskalakis, who has spent the past year in Washington as deputy director of the White House’s national mpox response team. The White House operation is being wound down and will be completed by the end of August.

Newsletters

Sign up for D.C. Diagnosis

An insider's guide to the politics and policies of health care

Please enter a valid email address. Privacy Policy

Daskalakis, who has spent much of his career working on HIV prevention and control, was director of the CDC’s Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention in the National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention. For much of 2021, he led the CDC’s Covid-19 vaccine task force.

Romero, who was Arkansas’ secretary of health from 2020 to 2022, joined the CDC in June 2022 in the center director role. Previously he served on, and was chair of, the CDC’s expert vaccine panel, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.

Two other high-ranking officials in NCIRD are being moved to other centers within the agency. Sam Posner, who served as acting director of the center in the second year of the pandemic, and has been principal deputy director since Romero’s hiring, is going to be acting director of the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control.

At NCIRD, Posner had replaced Nancy Messonnier, who ran afoul of the Trump administration early in the pandemic when she publicly warned in early March 2020 that the rapidly spreading virus was going to dramatically change lives. Messonnier left the CDC in the spring of 2021 and is now the dean of the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina.

Kristin Pope, deputy director of NCIRD, is going to the new Center for Forecasting and Analytics.

Previous article： Dobbs anniversary: the lost opportunity of abortion as health care
Next article： Medicare reduced heart disease by changing how it pays doctors

focus

hotspot

WSS

Some medical students still think black patients feel less pain

J&J reports mixed data on next

Unmasking the 'centricity' illusion in clinical trials

Some medical students still think black patients feel less pain

Studies point to risks of excluding people with obesity from drug trials

Beam Therapeutics to lay off 20% of its staff, re

hotspot

explore

Sign up for D.C. Diagnosis

hotspot

Peter Hotez and the public health issue of online harassment

Guardant Health colon cancer test endorsed by FDA advisory panel

Duchenne breakthrough therapy leaves behind pioneering families

Researchers explore possible ties between long Covid, menopause

The Supreme Court will review a ruling striking down a domestic violence federal gun ban

Lawmakers consider Medicare pay reforms for doctors

Duchenne breakthrough therapy leaves behind pioneering families

STAT Summit: Biotech founders on deal

As demand for Covid shots wanes, Moderna seeks its next success

STAT Readout Newsletter: Today's biggest biotech updates

Wikipedia

Ozempic cut risk of death in diabetes patients with chronic kidney disease

STAT Summit: GSK CEO on pharma giant's new direction

Bubonic plague hit France in 1720. Officials dithered. Sound familiar?

New research sheds light on how often breast cancer is overdiagnosed

Why some fertility treatments produce more boy babies

NIH confirmation hearing shows politicization of research

focus

hotspot

hotspot

knowledge