Why Half-Measures Will Never Restore Trust or Effectiveness

There are two key audiences for any public health agency like the CDC. The first is internal: the quality and caliber of its staff. An effective organization must attract top-tier talent (engineers, data scientists, and communication experts from the private and public sectors) who would never join the current CDC. These specialists, alongside the best traditional scientists and physicians, are essential for modern, agile responses to threats.

The CDC’s entrenched culture and tarnished reputation repel the very innovators we need most.

The second audience is the public: ordinary people like me. For my generation (Gen Z) and many others, trust in the CDC is gone, likely permanently. This is not about politics; it’s about decades of underwhelming performance, capped by catastrophic failures during COVID-19. No reform, rebranding, or leadership change will convince a majority of us to believe in the old institution again. The only path forward is a complete shutdown and replacement with a new agency that starts with a clean slate. If that new organization prioritizes transparency, competence, and clear communication from day one, it might, over one or two generations, earn the trust the CDC has irrevocably lost.

This irreversible loss of faith among both audiences is why partial measures (budget cuts, staff reductions, or program transfers under initiatives like Make America Healthy Again) are doomed to fail. The CDC is irredeemably broken. It must be shut down entirely and replaced with a new, lean, trustworthy agency built from the ground up. Anything less guarantees more preventable deaths, deeper distrust, and billions wasted.

My earlier article laid out the stark truth: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention failed catastrophically during COVID-19, and anything short of total closure is a wasteful, dangerous half-measure. Now, in late January 2026, with proposed budget slashes, staff cuts, and program transfers, some claim we are finally fixing the problem.

We are not. These changes treat symptoms while the disease festers.

The American people have lost faith in the CDC, and they are right to do so. Trust has plummeted to historic lows: only about half of Americans now express confidence in the agency, down from pre-pandemic levels above 80 percent. This is not temporary frustration; it is a profound, structural breach. The CDC misled the public about masks, delayed acknowledgment of aerosol transmission, supported prolonged school closures despite mounting evidence of harm, and overstated vaccine protection against transmission. Every reversal and every politically motivated guideline drove another nail into its coffin. An institution that has betrayed the public so repeatedly cannot rehabilitate itself. Only a completely new entity, untainted by this legacy of deception and incompetence, can earn back the trust we need for the next pandemic.

The rot goes deeper than COVID. Over decades, the CDC ballooned into a bloated empire, pursuing gun control, climate activism, and social justice initiatives while neglecting its core mission: stopping infectious diseases. This mission creep left it unprepared, sluggish, and arrogant. It ignored lessons from SARS and MERS about airborne spread, botched testing at the outset of COVID, and still maintains inadequate surveillance systems that leave us vulnerable to emerging threats. Internal audits reveal persistent financial weaknesses and a dysfunctional culture. Recent staff cuts and program eliminations have only exposed how hollow the agency already was.

Moving pieces around or slashing 53 percent of the budget preserves the same broken structure, the same entrenched bureaucrats, and the same failed processes. It is like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

History shows that attempts to salvage fatally flawed government institutions almost always fail. The IRS spent billions on IT upgrades that never worked. Department of Energy projects routinely ballooned 700 percent over budget before cancellation. The Government Accountability Office identifies tens of billions in annual waste from agencies too entrenched to reform. The CDC’s own post-COVID “reforms” amounted to little more than public relations. Former Director Rochelle Walensky admitted “dramatic, pretty public mistakes,” yet nothing fundamental changed. Partial defunding now risks economic disruption in states dependent on CDC grants while delivering none of the efficiency gains we need.

Shutting the CDC down completely is not reckless; it is the only responsible choice. One-time closure costs of $1 to 2 billion for severance and asset transfers are trivial compared with saving $100 to 200 billion over ten years by eliminating duplication and building a modern agency from scratch. NASA’s post-shuttle transformation embraced private innovation, slashed costs, and helped grow the space economy beyond $600 billion. A new public health agency could achieve the same: tightly focused on surveillance, rapid testing, honest communication, and stockpiling effective solutions. It would onshore critical supplies, plan for multi-pathogen threats from the start, and enforce ruthless accountability.

Critics claim closure would leave America defenseless. The opposite is true. The current CDC, distrusted and dysfunctional, already leaves us defenseless. Vaccine hesitancy fueled by its missteps weakens herd immunity. Slow, politicized responses guarantee worse outcomes next time. Half-measures like MAHA transfers preserve too much of the old rot and invite the same failures under new branding.

Private companies fire failing leadership and overhaul entire divisions after far less damage. We should demand no less from government agencies funded by our taxes. Protecting public health is too important for sentimentality or cowardice. Only by completely shutting down the CDC and starting fresh can we build an agency that serves both key audiences: one that attracts world-class talent for scientific excellence and, over time, earns the lasting trust of younger generations and everyday Americans through unwavering competence and transparency.

The health and lives of millions depend on it.