ATLANTA — A Georgia man who opened fire on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters, shooting dozens of rounds into the sprawling complex and killing a police officer, blamed the COVID-19 vaccine for making him depressed and suicidal, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press on Saturday.
The gunman also tried to get into the CDC's headquarters in Atlanta but was stopped by guards before driving to a pharmacy across the street and opening fire late Friday afternoon, the official said. He was armed with five firearms, including at least one long gun, the official said on condition of anonymity.
DeKalb County Police Officer David Rose was mortally wounded while responding to the shooting.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose skepticism of vaccine safety is a cornerstone of his career, voiced support for CDC employees Saturday. However, some laid-off CDC employees said he shares responsibility for the violence and called on him to resign.
People are also reading…
A bullet hole is visible in the door of a CVS pharmacy Saturday near where police say a man shot at the headquarters of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
CDC shooter identified
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation named Patrick Joseph White, 30, as the shooter but authorities haven't said whether he was killed by police or killed himself.
The suspect's father contacted police and identified his son as the possible shooter, the law enforcement official told AP. The father said his son was upset over the death of the son's dog and also became fixated on the COVID-19 vaccine, according to the official. The family lives in Kennesaw, Georgia, an Atlanta suburb about 25 miles northwest of CDC headquarters.
A voicemail left at a phone number listed publicly for White's family wasn't immediately returned Saturday morning.
Pedestrians comfort each other Friday after a shooting near the campuses of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Emory University in Atlanta.
Employees at CDC are shaken
The shooting left gaping bullet holes in windows across the CDC campus, where thousands work on critical disease research. Employees huddled under lockdown for hours while investigators gathered evidence. Staff members were encouraged to work from home Monday or take leave.
At least four CDC buildings were hit, Director Susan Monarez said on social media.
Sam Atkins, who lives in Stone Mountain, said outside the CVS pharmacy on Saturday that gun violence feels like "a fact of life" now. "This is an everyday thing that happens here in Georgia."
"We are deeply saddened by the tragic shooting at CDC's Atlanta campus that took the life of officer David Rose," Kennedy said Saturday. "We know how shaken our public health colleagues feel today. No one should face violence while working to protect the health of others."
Some rejected the expressions of solidarity Kennedy made in a "Dear colleagues" email, and called for his resignation.
"Kennedy is directly responsible for the villainization of CDC's workforce through his continuous lies about science and vaccine safety, which have fueled a climate of hostility and mistrust," said Fired but Fighting, a group of laid-off employees pushing back against changes President Donald Trump's administration made to the CDC.
The group also called for the resignation of Russell Vought, pointing to a video recorded before Trump appointed him Office of Management and Budget director with orders to dismantle much of the federal government.
"We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected," Vought said in the video, obtained by ProPublica and the research group Documented. "When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work, because they are increasingly viewed as the villains. We want their funding to be shut down."
A request for comment from Vought's agency was not immediately returned.
CDC workers already faced uncertain futures due to funding cuts, layoffs and political disputes over their agency's mission. "Save the CDC" signs are common in some Atlanta-area neighborhoods.
This shooting was the "physical embodiment of the narrative that has taken over, attacking science, and attacking our federal workers," said Sarah Boim, a former CDC communications staffer who was fired this year during terminations.
Distrust of COVID-19 vaccines
A neighbor of White told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that White spoke with her multiple times about his distrust of COVID-19 vaccines.
Nancy Hoalst, who lives in same cul-de-sac as White's family, said he seemed like a good guy" while doing yard work and walking dogs for neighbors, but would bring up vaccines even in unrelated conversations.
"He was very unsettled and he very deeply believed that vaccines hurt him and were hurting other people," Hoalst told the Atlanta newspaper. "He emphatically believed that."
But she said she never believed White would be violent: "I had no idea he thought he would take it out on the CDC."
An armed police officer responds Friday near the scene of shooting at the Emory University in Atlanta.
Slain officer leaves wife and 3 kids
"This evening, there is a wife without a husband. There are three children, one unborn, without a father," DeKalb County CEO Lorraine Cochran-Johnson said.
Rose, 33, was a former Marine who served in Afghanistan, graduated from the police academy in March and "quickly earned the respect of his colleagues for his dedication, courage and professionalism," DeKalb County said.
Sam Atkins, who lives in Stone Mountain, said outside the CVS on Saturday that gun violence feels like "a fact of life" now. "This is an everyday thing that happens here in Georgia."
Senior CDC leadership told some staff Saturday that they would do a full security assessment following the shooting, according to a conference call recording obtained by AP.
One staffer said people felt like "sitting ducks" Friday. Another asked whether administrators spoke with Kennedy and if they could speak of "the misinformation, the disinformation" that "caused this issue." Leaders said they are speaking with Kennedy's office but didn't say what Kennedy would do.
CDC leaders fear employees could continue to be targeted. In a Saturday email to employees obtained by AP, CDC's security office asked employees to scrape old CDC parking decals off their vehicles. The security office said decals haven't been required for some time.
For families with sick kids, the rise of vaccine hesitancy could be life-threatening
For families with sick kids, the rise of vaccine hesitancy could be life-threatening
Colleen Thomas' son was born missing a part of his immune system. The Indiana mother didn't know that immediately, but there were signs. The little boy was always sick—constant congestion and respiratory infections. Thomas had to hold a breathing mask over her son's face as he slept and wheezed.
"That was just for a cold," Thomas recalled. "It was horrible."
Thomas' son was 3 when he was diagnosed with an immunodeficiency that made him susceptible to severe illness if he was exposed to respiratory infections.
"Once he was diagnosed by an immunologist, it all became very clear that he'd been really lucky, that he had only caught mild viruses and colds—even though it wasn't mild for him," she said. "He's very lucky he didn't come into contact with something like or ."
"There was a point at which the doctor looked at me and said, 'I don't know if he would survive those,'" Thomas added. "That is scary."
Even before his diagnosis, Thomas' son got all his childhood vaccinations, reports. Now, with the news of —coupled with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an anti-vaccine activist, of the nation's health department—Thomas worries about the future of vaccine research, messaging and hesitancy in the country.
For parents of kids and adult children with immunocompromised systems, the consequences of fewer people vaccinating themselves and their children could be life-threatening—particularly for young children, children and adults with medically complex needs and disabilities, and older Americans. Often the people advocating most on their behalf are parents, or members of the sandwich generation who have young children and also care for aging parents. Many of them are women, who are credited with making family health decisions.
Thomas' son, who is now 12 and much healthier, for a long time relied on the chance that enough people around him—at places like school, the park, and even the grocery store—were vaccinated. High rates of vaccination can achieve herd immunity, the indirect protection of a community from an infectious disease. It can also be achieved through natural infection, but it leads to .
Medical experts worry about the impact on herd immunity if more people decline vaccinations. The percentage of people who need to be immune from a disease varies, but herd immunity .
"The good news is that the vast majority of adults in the U.S. are vaccinated," said Dr. Elizabeth Jacobs, a cancer and nutritional epidemiologist who has studied vaccine hesitancy, in an email. "Over time, however, as vaccination coverage continues to drop, we can expect to see more outbreaks of diseases that are preventable."
Herd immunity protects not just people with weakened immune systems, but also people who can't get vaccinated yet like newborns.
"These are already issues that we've been working to address by creating herd immunity, so it protects those people that need this most because of whatever reasons they can't get a vaccine," said Dr. Regina Davis Moss, who advocates for equitable health outcomes through . She previously worked for the federal health department, Kaiser Health and the American Public Health Association.
"The beauty of living in the United States is that we do have freedom, we do have choice," she said. "But that doesn't mean it doesn't have consequences—that doesn't mean that other people don't get hurt."
Concerns about vaccine hesitancy come as are declining, and there is a rise in the so-called "medical freedom" movement, which essentially rejects government interference in health choices.
"I feel like what gets lost in this discussion is parents who also want to make sure that their communities and their child's school are healthy," said Rekha Lakshmanan, chief strategic officer at , a Texas-based nonprofit that educates the public and state lawmakers on the importance of vaccinations. "Those parents, too, have a right to make sure that we're living in a society and in a community that is free from disease. Their rights are getting lost in all this discussion."
Thomas said the population of people who are anti-vaccine—meaning they will not accept medical science on the safety of vaccines—is smaller than people realize.
"Most people are not that way," she said. "But that tiny group is very loud, and so I have to be the counter voice."
Pennsylvania resident Erica Finkelstein-Parker's adult son, Djino, was diagnosed with liver cancer in 2021 at the age of 15. He received oncology treatments for a year, which culminated with a liver transplant. Today, the 19-year-old is on immunosuppressant medication that has weakened his immune system and makes him more susceptible to severe illness.
Finkelstein-Parker makes sure her family is up to date on vaccines. But it won't be enough for her son if there are increasing instances of widespread infection among unvaccinated people. The measles outbreak in Texas—among mostly children—is in a county with one of the lowest vaccination rates in the state."
"I can't tell you how angry I get when I hear people say, 'It's my right to not vaccinate,'" she said. "It's not somebody's right to endanger somebody else."
Childhood vaccination rates have been declining since around the start of the pandemic, a period of rising disinformation and misinformation about vaccine safety about vaccines. (The nation's vaccines .)
"Refusing vaccines is withdrawing from the community health bank without depositing anything back into it," Jacobs said. "A lot of people think that choosing not to vaccinate will only affect their own children, but this is not true."
During the pandemic, an anti-vaccine nonprofit that Kennedy founded was linked to widespread messaging against the COVID-19 vaccines, . At the height of the pandemic, the same group asked the federal government , claiming the health risks outweighed the benefits.
People who are anti-vaccine consciously challenge the safety of vaccines despite research that confirms they are safe. Then there are people who lack enough information about existing vaccine safety data, but are willing to change their minds. Lakshmanan said that the public should not equate these groups as the same, since the latter is open to changing their minds.
"They're just genuinely trying to decipher and swim through the vast amount of information to help inform them as to how they want to approach vaccines for their children," she said.
Keesha Middlemass is a political science professor at Howard University who has examined the history of racist medical research, misinformation and its impact on vaccine hesitancy among Black people. Middlemass said it's important to acknowledge that American society is facing a fractured media ecosystem that will make vaccine education more difficult moving forward.
"People don't trust government," she said. "The lack of trust in government, plus the disinformation in this echo chamber of information, leads to vaccine hesitancy."
During his Senate confirmation hearings, Kennedy was repeatedly asked about his history of . He refused to say that vaccines don't cause autism. (.) Kennedy also claimed support for the measles vaccine and the polio vaccine. During one of his first remarks as secretary, Kennedy indicated an interest in .
As HHS secretary, Kennedy oversees the research and approval of vaccines but does not have authority to revoke vaccine mandates that were put in place by statehouses around the country. But some legislatures and state officials have begun to dismantle that safety net.
In Louisiana, the surgeon general there announced this month that . Lawmakers in several states have filed bills aimed at expanding the types of reasons that parents can use to exempt their children from vaccines.
Now with RFK Jr. as HHS secretary, Lakshmanan said she won't be surprised if vaccine hesitancy gets more air time on social media and other mediums.
"That's going to just create even more confusion for parents," she said.
Lakshmanan said it's important that people call out bad faith messaging on vaccines, including from medical professionals and doctors within the halls of state legislatures.
"We should hold lawmakers, policymakers and decisionmakers accountable when they try to normalize misinformation about vaccines," she said. "At the end of the day, it's about protecting kids and putting kids over the politics around this issue."
Middlemass said the way forward will be a vaccine education, but it can't be a one-size-fits-all approach.
"Vaccine education needs to be culturally relevant. A single campaign for everybody is not appropriate," she said. "There's got to be a huge push for vaccine education through a public health lens that connects with different communities. You need credible messengers. You need to be able to approach parents where they are, versus telling them what they must do."
Finkelstein-Parker is observing all of this with frustration. She promotes vaccines through a social media account, writes to her congressional leaders and plans on getting more politically involved locally. For her, it's personal.
She adopted a child, a daughter named Emmalee, in 2005. Emmalee died in 2011 at age 8 from complications related to a measles infection she contracted prior to her adoption, in her home country of India. Finkelstein-Parker's daughter's case was rare, but emerging measles outbreaks in the United States shows what's at stake for other families.
"I am a vaccine advocate because for people walking around unvaccinated, if they get measles as an adult, they're going to be really sorry. If their kids get it, they land in the hospital," she said.
Today, Thomas said her son is thriving after years of surgeries and treatment. She volunteers for an Indiana vaccine advocacy organization that does outreach to parents and lawmakers. Thomas wonders about the families and friends in her community whose children are as vulnerable as her son was as a toddler and young child. She implored mothers in particular to seek science-based information.
"If they're not going to take the time to go to the doctor and really listen and ask questions, then they're going to run with this misinformation," she said. "And they're not doing it because they're trying to be negligent or hurt their kids. They're trying to do the very best they can for their kids, and we're just victims of this manipulation."
was produced by and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
As more parents abstain from vaccinations, children from low-income households may pay the price
As more parents abstain from vaccinations, children from low-income households may pay the price
For many American children, it's a rite of passage: Visit the pediatrician for a routine checkup, get a quick jab in the thigh or upper arm, and go home with a brightly colored bandage, a lollipop, and lifelong protection against a dangerous and deadly disease. Vaccines, one of the most important public health advances of the 21st century, have nearly eradicated many diseases, saving millions of lives. Yet, in recent years, a dip in immunization rates—coupled with the proliferation of vaccine misinformation—has unleashed new debates about this critical public health measure.
Until recently, immunization rates have trended upward since their invention. Mid-century innovations were pivotal in developing vaccines: A combined vaccination for tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis (whooping cough) was rolled out in 1948, followed by the polio vaccine in 1955. A vaccine for measles was first approved for public use in 1963. By 1971, it was combined with those for mumps and rubella to create the MMR vaccination.
The evolution of vaccination programs
Immunization advances dramatically lowered child mortality rates, with infant deaths over the past 50 years, according to a 2024 World Health Organization report. That's an estimated 101 million infant lives saved. "Vaccines are among the most powerful inventions in history, making once-feared diseases preventable," WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus .
It took more than just the invention of vaccines to see results, though. Public health campaigns and funding initiatives helped raise awareness about their importance, which increased vaccine accessibility. In 1962, President John F. Kennedy signed the Vaccination Assistance Act, designating government funds to ensure children under 5 received vaccines regardless of their family's income. In 1974, WHO launched the Expanded Programme on Immunization to ensure children across the globe have equal access to vaccinations.
Public health campaigns about vaccines were often created in response to crises. In the late 1980s, a measles outbreak prompted a national public health campaign to bring series 9 vaccines to public attention. Referring to the nine immunizations received by age 2 at the time, the campaign signs featured a cute baby and read, "We can think of 9 good reasons to vaccinate on time, but you need only one."
Addressing vaccine hesitancy and disparities
Despite substantial evidence backing the safety and efficacy of immunizations, protests against them date back to mid-19th-century England, when the British government mandated smallpox vaccinations. Objections varied over time. Some expressed concerns that the government should not have control over their bodies; others said vaccines conflict with their religious beliefs or expressed fears about their safety.
In November 2024, vaccine backlash again entered the public discourse when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was nominated and later confirmed as Health and Human Services Secretary. Taking a position in direct contrast to that of his late uncle, Kennedy has been vocal in his skepticism of vaccines. He has perpetuated false claims that vaccines are linked to autism—a theory from a 1998 study that was retracted for inaccuracy soon after publication.
In 2019, on a trip to Samoa, Kennedy met with locals who were also against vaccinations. Just months after this visit, an outbreak of measles there killed 83 people, most of whom were infants and children. The Samoa outbreak is not unlike past outbreaks in the U.S., where gaps persist in vaccination rates among children who live below the federal poverty level. Coverage for childhood vaccines was also lower among the uninsured or those covered by Medicaid, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.
partnered with Stacker to explore how socioeconomic factors influence vaccination rates, using data from the . Keep reading to learn more about the challenges children face in getting vaccinated and how these difficulties could be exacerbated in the coming years.
Systemic barriers limit vaccine access in kids under 24 months old
Current guidelines recommend that all children receive vaccinations to protect against 15 major illnesses by age 24 months. The CDC tracks most of these through the completion of the combined 7-vaccine series, a grouping of vaccines administered during the first two years of life that covers everything from polio and measles to hepatitis B. Although no states mandate vaccinations, children are required to receive their immunizations to attend public schools and many daycare centers.
Children living below the poverty line receive the 7-vaccine series at a significantly lower rate than those who live above the poverty line, according to CDC data. This disparity has increased in recent years. While of all U.S. children born in 2020 received these critical vaccines by age 2, the completion rate was just over 56% for children who live below the poverty line—a notable decrease from the nearly 61% completion rate of those living below the poverty line who were born just five years earlier.
Vaccine completion rates are also higher among non-Hispanic white children, those with private insurance, and those living in urban areas.
Various factors contribute to these disparities, including income and insurance coverage. Those with lower incomes or who lack health insurance may be unable to afford the cost of office visits, even though the cost of vaccines themselves is covered—particularly at the frequency required within the first few years. Babies usually have 10 well visits in the first 24 months of life to monitor growth and administer vaccines on schedule.
Practical considerations can add more challenges. Those experiencing poverty tend to have less flexible work schedules, and they may lack transportation or live in more rural areas that are further from doctors' offices. Families living below the federal poverty level also tend to move more frequently, making it difficult to keep up with a paper trail of their vaccination history.
Furthermore, medical professionals' lack of cultural or language fluency to reach wider communities, and the health care system's lasting legacy of negative and exploitative practices have led to a deep-seated mistrust of doctors in some communities. The proliferation of incorrect or misleading information about vaccine safety and efficacy may further compound these practical barriers.
Recent drops in vaccinations are, in part, attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic, which halted and delayed routine doctor visits. Some children missed regularly scheduled vaccinations or received them late. Completion rates for the combined 7-vaccine series fell from approximately 70% for all children born between 2018 and 2019 to about 67% for kids born between 2020 and 2021.
Despite the impact of the VCF program, barriers to vaccination remain
In 1994, Congress created the Vaccines for Children program following a series of measles outbreaks in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The VFC program provides free vaccinations to all children aged 18 and under who are uninsured, underinsured, eligible for Medicaid, or Alaska Native or American Indian. Prior to this, vaccines were covered only by insurance companies—or at a high out-of-pocket cost for those without health insurance. Thanks to the VFC, over half of U.S. children born in 2020 qualified for free vaccinations.
Although the CDC provides funding for over 60 programs that put the VFC program into action across the country, vaccination rates for those eligible remain much lower than the overall population—and this discrepancy grows each year. For those born in 2020, just 3 in 5 (61%) VFC-eligible children completed their 7-vaccine series, compared to 3 in 4 of those ineligible for the program. VFC-eligible kids face difficulties in completing vaccines that require multiple doses, as well as doses scheduled after the first year.
Despite ongoing challenges, the program has proven vital roughly 30 years since its launch. The CDC estimates vaccines have between 1994 and 2023—saving not only lives but also out-of-pocket costs for parents and trillions of dollars in future health care costs by stopping the spread of serious diseases.
This could all change in the coming years, though. Concern in the medical community in response to Kennedy's plans for reforming the U.S. health care system. Although Kennedy denies intentions to completely abolish vaccinations, he has a clear history of speaking out against them, even saying there is "."
Concern about vaccine misinformation has ratcheted up since March 2025, when the ongoing measles outbreak began in West Texas and spread to neighboring New Mexico. As of early April 2025, the highly contagious diseases has already climbed to highest number of measles infections seen in a single year since 2019, during a wave of cases. The current outbreak has also claimed the lives of two children.
Kennedy has been vocal about cutting CDC funding, which oversees programs like the VFC. Though Kennedy has said he won't "take away anybody's vaccines," he has advocated for revoking approval for parts of the combined 7-vaccine series, arguing that further studies are needed, as well as increased parental choice.
Although the head of HHS cannot directly implement these plans, the role has the authority to appoint or replace members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. The head of the HHS role could also influence Kennedy to cut or reduce other initiatives, like the Section 317 program, which provides federal vaccine grants to state and local health departments.
Spike in kindergarteners receiving vaccine exemptions may threaten herd immunity
Immunization rates have been dropping prior to Kennedy's rise on the political stage, which began during the COVID-19 pandemic and was fueled by the spread of misinformation.
Although U.S. public schools require certain vaccinations before children can attend, each state allows medical exemptions, and most allow exemptions for religious or personal beliefs. While the share of kindergarteners with medical exemptions has remained steady at about 0.2%, the share of children with nonmedical exemptions has shot up.
During the 2023-2024 school year, an average of 4% of kindergarteners' families across the U.S. requested exemptions— the 2011-2012 school year. The highest numbers were seen in Western states like Idaho, Oregon, and Alaska, with a rate well above average at 14.3%. Mississippi, California, New York, and West Virginia had the lowest exemption rates in the nation, with each under 1%.
Experts attribute rising exemptions to the surge of misinformation around vaccine safety and efficacy, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to a 2024 peer-reviewed study headed by a Columbia University researcher, and distrust in institutions have caused vaccine hesitancy at a difficult rate to mitigate. Coupled with political polarization and the spread of misinformation through mass media, the potential impact on the understanding of vaccines is significant.
While an average of 4% may seem like a small portion of the population, childhood vaccines are a public health measure. If enough kids in a particular school or community are vaccinated, the group can benefit from herd immunity, which helps prevent those who are unvaccinated from contracting a disease. However, viruses like measles are so easily transmitted that 95% of a community must be immunized to prevent the spread of disease.
When children with vaccine exemptions cluster—often in more affluent areas, around private schools—this creates favorable conditions for an outbreak. Evidence of the effects of decreased vaccination rates was seen toward the end of 2024, with cases of measles and whooping cough reaching the highest levels in five years.
At least 3 in 4 parents surveyed support school vaccine requirements; however, nearly 2 in 5 (38%) parents seeking exemptions did so based on personal or philosophical beliefs, not medical reasons. A 2024 parent survey conducted by the CDC showed that while about a third of parents believed unvaccinated children should be able to attend school, those children should stay home during an outbreak.
Contracting these illnesses can significantly impact not only a child's physical health but also lead to them missing school and falling behind academically or socially. Continued intervention is necessary to ensure the safety of all children, especially higher-risk populations like those experiencing poverty.
With the resurgence of diseases once under control or even eliminated (meaning there was no new spread of disease over a 12-month period), some states have become more stringent about exemptions. New York disallowed religious exemptions following disease outbreaks, and California implemented a policy that requires parents seeking vaccine exemption to first be educated on the risks. While this hasn't produced much change among private school students, those living below the poverty level have shown a greater decrease in exemptions.
It's important to note the distinction between families who don't complete their childhood vaccinations due to systemic barriers and those who abstain by choice. Ultimately, however, they'll face the same consequences. Any unvaccinated child will be more susceptible to the spread of disease and its painful and, in some cases, debilitating consequences.
Yet it's the children below the poverty line—uninsured, underinsured, and often facing obstacles merely to get to the pediatrician for their MMR shot—who will inevitably pay a greater price.
Data reporting by Tory Lysik. Story editing by Alizah Salario. Copy editing by Janina Lawrence. Photo selection by Ania Antecka.
originally appeared on and was produced and distributed in partnership with Stacker Studio.
