CDC Deputy Director Jennifer Shuford to Leave After Nov. 3 Midterms, Citing Family

Jennifer Shuford, the deputy director and chief medical officer of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is leaving the Trump administration after the Nov. 3 midterm elections. The Washington Post reported it Monday, Oct. 26, and Shuford confirmed her exit to the paper that night.

"I am leaving to spend more time with my family," she told the Post. "I am so thankful to President Trump and Secretary Kennedy for giving me the opportunity to help lead CDC. It has been an amazing experience, and I will be forever grateful for it."

Shuford, a former Texas health commissioner, joined the CDC in April. She came in with a group of senior hires that included former deputy surgeon general Erica Schwartz, healthcare executive Sean Slovenski and FDA official Sara Brenner.

Two explanations, one departure

The Post's reporting offers two different accounts of why she is going. One person linked her decision to a family health issue. Another said she had disagreed with the administration's approach to vaccine policy.

Shuford's own on-record statement points to family. The Post's sources are anonymous, and neither the CDC nor the White House responded to requests for comment outside business hours. Health and Human Services has not publicly addressed the departure.

That leaves a gap between what she said and what one unnamed person told the Post. Both accounts can be true at once, and nobody on the record has said so.

The vaccine policy backdrop

The news lands as President Trump has unveiled plans to demand that vaccine makers split certain childhood shots into five separate doses. The step would advance a long-standing goal of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has promoted a link between vaccines and autism. Scientists have repeatedly found no such link.

No source has tied Shuford's exit to that specific proposal. The two events are close in time, and that is all the reporting establishes.

A turbulent agency

Shuford is the latest senior name to leave a CDC that has had a rough run under Kennedy. Susan Monarez was fired last August after 28 days as CDC director, after she refused to approve updated vaccine guidance. By then Kennedy had already removed all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and replaced them with his own picks.

A judge has since suspended several of those appointments amid legal challenges. Kennedy has also pushed staff reductions that produced hundreds of layoffs, which the Daily Beast reports have affected disease surveillance and other public health functions.

Shuford was brought in, in the Daily Beast's telling, to help rebuild confidence in the agency. That outlet also reports that she spoke publicly about the measles resurgence in Texas, which it says Kennedy has downplayed. That account has not been confirmed by HHS.

Measles numbers

The measles figures make the stakes concrete. The CDC has confirmed 4,588 measles cases this year, per the Daily Beast. That is more than double the 2,289 recorded in all of 2025. Of this year's patients, 479 have required hospitalization.

Shuford was the agency's chief medical officer while those numbers climbed. Her formal exit comes right after Election Day, which means the CDC will lose its top physician while a measles outbreak of this size is still on the books.

What comes next

The CDC has not named a replacement for Shuford, and has not said whether the chief medical officer role will be filled quickly. Nor has it said what the five-dose vaccine plan would require of manufacturers or when it would take effect. Until HHS or the White House answers, her stated reason for leaving is the only on-record account, and the question of whether policy played a role rests on one anonymous source.