Former CDC officials seeking to scalp RFK Jr. are awash in special interests

Several former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) directors who lambasted Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have connections to special interests targeted by the Make America Healthy Again movement, according to a review of their biographies and lobbying records by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The former directors described Kennedy as “dangerous” in a Sept. 2 New York Times editorial and in cable news appearances. While the paper noted the group included officials in both parties — exploiting fractures in the Republican caucus on Kennedy’s leadership — it failed to mention they have financial or professional ties to the industries and nonprofits facing diminished influence under Kennedy.

“Conflicts of interest and an entrenched status quo have broken the American people’s trust in our public health system,” an HHS spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation in response to the investigation’s findings. “Secretary Kennedy is committed to transparency and upholding gold-standard science to restore confidence in our country’s health care institutions.”

The former CDC officials’ criticism of Kennedy follows his ousting of Susan Monarez from her position as CDC director on Aug. 27 — apparently over changes to the committee that advises the CDC on the childhood vaccination schedule, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).

Monarez will testify on Wednesday before the Senate Health, Education, and Pensions Committee and will say that Kennedy directed her to approve ACIP decisions in advance and dismiss vaccine officials, according to her prepared testimony as obtained by the New York Times.

Former Biden CDC Director Rochelle Walensky coauthored the editorial casting Kennedy’s actions to remake the ACIP as beyond the pale despite her own history of clashing with the committee. Walensky broke with the committee to recommend COVID boosters for healthy adults in 2021, fulfilling a promise by President Joe Biden that they would be available, but overruling concerns from the committee about a lack of data supporting the move.

The NYT editorial criticized Kennedy’s support of “federal legislation that will cause millions of people with health insurance through Medicaid to lose their coverage,” a reference to the passage of President Donald Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill in July, which restricts Medicaid dollars from flowing to able-bodied adults without dependents or proof of employment. But the editorial does not disclose that several authors have financial ties to health care companies impacted by the clawing back of Medicaid dollars.

Mandy Cohen — who served as acting director of CDC under former President Joe Biden — is a part-time advisor to Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, a firm that in 2025 has lobbied for 23 clients on health issues and 4 clients on Medicaid and Medicare specifically, according to OpenSecrets. As Congress hammered out Trump’s signature bill, the firm lobbied on behalf of Health Access California, which advocates for Medicaid coverage for illegal immigrants, and several major health providers and pharmaceutical companies, as those interest groups sought to shape the bill.

When the firm recruited Cohen in March 2025, they described her expertise as including “changes affecting Medicaid” and “public health strategy and communications.”

Mandy Cohen, former CDC Directory, talking and laughing about how she made policy decisions during COVID.

Her approach?

She would ask friends, “Well, what are you planning to do?” And they would casually agree on some policy on the phone and then do that.

Completely unreal. pic.twitter.com/0igiNQNVgW

— Kevin Bass PhD MS (@kevinnbass) February 19, 2025

Health executive William Roper led the CDC from 1990 to 1993 under President George H. W. Bush and also coauthored the NYT editorial. Roper joined the board of dialysis giant DaVita Inc. in 2001. He resigned from the board in 2020. His affiliation with the company lasted many years longer than his CDC tenure. A 2019 WBTV investigation found Roper made roughly $3.6 million in total compensation from DaVita from 2010 to 2018.

DaVita controls a third of the U.S. market for dialysis for patients with end-stage renal disease and kidney disease, conditions often caused by diabetes. Kennedy has sought to curb diabetes by cutting sugary drinks from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, improving medical schools’ nutrition programs, and implementing other initiatives.

Roper also served on the board of pharmacy benefit manager Express Scripts until it was acquired by insurance giant Cigna in 2018, then on the Cigna board until 2021. Roper did not disclose either board position on ethics forms while serving as the dean of the University of North Carolina Medical School and the CEO of UNC Health Care, according to WBTV.

Roper led the UNC System, which oversees 16 universities, including the University of North Carolina, from 2019 to 2020. His tenure coincided with increased scrutiny of UNC for its connection to the Wuhan Institute of Virology and collaboration on coronavirus engineering research that some scientists and government officials — including Kennedy — say may have contributed to the onset of COVID-19.

Cohen and Roper did not respond to requests for comment sent through LinkedIn.

Democrat Mark Warner becomes UNGLUED while questioning RFK Jr. https://t.co/vhjurp5UNq pic.twitter.com/VO9YqEnixu

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) January 29, 2025

Nonprofits

Several of the former CDC officials have lent their credibility to nonprofits that have at times accepted funding from special interest groups — connections emblematic of the revolving door Kennedy seeks to shut.

Two of the former CDC directors who coauthored the piece — Jeffrey Koplan, who served under President George W. Bush, and David Satcher, who served under President Bill Clinton — have previously served on the CDC Foundation, which has come under fire in recent years for acting as a vehicle for special interests.

Coca-Cola donated $1 million to the CDC Foundation between 2010 and 2015, with more gifts reported in the foundation’s own records, according to a 2019 study. Internal CDC emails obtained in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by U.S. Right to Know (USRTK) and cited in the study showed that Coke staff met with the CDC on the anti-obesity initiatives. For years, the CDC falsely claimed not to accept commercial support while accepting millions from drug companies and other commercial interests through its foundation, according to USRTK.

Frieden has worked with the World Health Organization, which has seen its global influence diminish since Trump withdrew U.S. funding from the organization.

Koplan also served on the China Medical Board, an organization to “promote the development of healthcare in China … through funding medical, nursing, and public health research and education.” The board receives financial backing from the Rockefeller Foundation, the sponsor of a variety of leftwing causes, with an emphasis on climate change. Following the COVID pandemic, in which Beijing concealed information related to the virus’s origin and hoarded medical supplies, the Trump administration has taken action to unwind dangerous collaborations on dual-use medical research with China and achieve more independence from China in pharmaceutical manufacturing.

Koplan, Satcher, Frieden, and Schuchat did not reply to emailed requests for comment.

Walensky did not respond to a request for comment sent through the Harvard Kennedy School, where she is a fellow.

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