Ralph Abraham, a top health official in Louisiana who has peddled disinformation about vaccines, has been quietly named to a prominent position within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Abraham’s appointment was not formally announced, but his name appears on internal databases for the agency, which list him as the principal deputy director for the CDC — the agency’s second-highest ranking position. Because the CDC does not yet have a permanent director, Abraham will likely serve as the de facto head of the agency until one is found.
As former head of Louisiana’s Department of Health, and as the state’s first surgeon general, Abraham became infamous when he banned state health agencies from recommending vaccines to the public. In 2024, he errantly described the COVID-19 vaccine as “dangerous.” He also said that he would like to examine the supposed link between vaccines and autism, a notion that has been thoroughly debunked for decades.
Instead of promoting vaccines, Abraham pushed for a “hands-off” approach to government recommendations. “Government should admit the limitations of its role in people’s lives and pull back its tentacles from the practice of medicine,” he said in February.
However, that philosophy didn’t stop Abraham from promoting ivermectin, a medication used to treat parasitic diseases, as a means to treat COVID-19 — a method that gained popularity among anti-vax groups at the time despite having no basis in medical science. Ivermectin has since been found to be ineffective in treating the virus.
During both his time as head of the state’s health department and as surgeon general, Louisiana’s COVID rates spiked, with the state becoming one of the worst in the country in terms of spreading of the virus last year.
Critics are concerned that Abraham will give undue legitimacy to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s unfounded anti-vaccination claims.
“With the addition of Dr. Abraham, they now have a scientific gloss that they can put on their anti-vaccine theories,” said Nirav Shah, who served in the role Abraham now holds during the Biden administration.
Abraham “gives Secretary Kennedy some scientific and medical cover for their odious and unscientific beliefs,” Shah added.
Abraham is the latest anti-vax appointment Kennedy has made to the agency. Notably, Kennedy fired every member of an advisory board in the CDC that was tasked with providing advice on vaccines, replacing those vacancies this past summer with people who harbor anti-vaccine views similar to his own.
At the instruction of Kennedy, the CDC this month altered a page on its website that was previously aimed at countering the false claim that vaccines cause autism.
Whereas that website previously stated that “studies have shown that there is no link between receiving vaccines and developing autism spectrum disorder,” the site now says the following:
The claim ‘vaccines do not cause autism’ is not an evidence-based claim because studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism.
The change to the website has been widely condemned, with health experts noting the new statement does not abide by the scientific method.
“You can’t do a scientific study to show that something does not cause something else,” said Alison Singer, president and co-founder of the Autism Science Foundation, responding to the alterations. “All we can do in the scientific community is point to the preponderance of the evidence, the number of studies, the fact that the studies are so conclusive.”
In spite of his role as head of HHS, most Americans do not have a favorable view of Kennedy. A Quinnipiac University poll conducted in September, for example, showed that only a third of Americans, 33 percent, approved of his job performance as health secretary, while 54 percent disapproved.
Former federal health officials have also expressed deep concern over Kennedy’s leadership. In an open letter they penned in October, six former surgeons general from both sides of the political divide wrote that Kennedy’s actions are endangering the lives of Americans.
“Rather than combating the rapid spread of health misinformation with facts and clarity, Kennedy is amplifying it,” the letter-writers stated. “The consequences aren’t abstract. They are measured in lives lost, disease outbreaks and an erosion of public trust that will take years to rebuild.”
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