Now it’s time to say a fond farewell to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) because it is now giving deliberate misinformation under Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s direction. It’s very sad because the CDC used to be the premier public health organization in the world. Now it’s completely broken and we can’t depend on it for good advice any longer.

The recent CDC recommendation to stop giving Hepatitis B vaccine to all newborn babies is an unforgivable betrayal of its duty to protect public health. Under anti-vaxxer RFK, Jr. the CDC is no longer following science, and this once-superb agency can no longer be trusted for reliable information.

The Hepatitis B vaccine (an effective treatment used safely for decades) nearly eradicated Hepatitis B in American children. The new CDC guideline changes clear medical advice and a lifesaving protocol to a vague suggestion that parents decide “when or if” to vaccinate their babies. This isn’t based on medical science but on right-wing political ideology. It is a deliberate and dangerous policy change which will endanger innocent babies.

This virus, which is often carried by people who don’t know they’re infected, can spread through everyday personal contact. The new, confusing CDC guidance shifts the burden of risk assessment onto parents, guaranteeing that preventable hepatitis infections (leading to liver disease and cancers) will increase. This isn’t a policy evolution — it’s a deliberate erosion of a lifesaving standard by far right anti-science anti-vaxxers.

Now that we can no longer trust the CDC we can still get accurate medical advice elsewhere. One resource is our personal physicians. And for authoritative public health information, we can still depend on institutions committed to evidence-based medicine, like the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the World Health Organization, and our own Massachusetts DPH (www.mass.gov/orgs/department-of-public-health).

We are witnessing a profound national tragedy with the deliberate dismantling of this superb public health agency by the Trump administration for political gain. To safeguard our families, we need to recognize this loss, stop depending on the corrupted CDC, and transfer our trust to organizations upholding science and patient safety above all else. Unfortunately, the CDC (as we knew it) is now gone.

Lawrence Pareles, MD

Florence