200 Rounds at the CDC: A Deadly Collision of Guns and Misinformation
- armantabesh
- Aug 17, 2025
- 5 min read
On August 8, 2025, nearly 200 rounds of gunfire shattered windows and doors across the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) headquarters in suburban Atlanta right next to Emory University's main campus. The attack left Officer David Rose, a 33-year-old former Marine and father of three, dead. It also left behind a workforce of over 10,000 scientists and staff shocked and fearful as their vital workplace devolved into a crime scene.
The assailant, 30 year-old Patrick Joseph White, was armed with five firearms stolen from his father’s safe. White died by suicide after exchanging gunfire with responding officers. He had expressed deep resentment toward the COVID-19 vaccine, which he blamed for his emotional and physical decline. Investigators found a manifesto at his home, expressing his intent to make the public aware of his vaccine-related distrust.
This act of violence was the collision of two of America’s most urgent crises: gun violence and the spread of health misinformation.
The CDC Under Siege
The CDC campus, where researchers work relentlessly to protect national and global health, was rendered eerily quiet. Staff members sheltered in place amid bullet-ridden walls and windows. The attack compounded an already quiet atmosphere. Earlier that year, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. implemented sweeping cuts that eliminated nearly 2,000 CDC positions. Just weeks before the shooting, he terminated $500 million in federal funding for mRNA vaccine development, arguing the technology was too risky despite overwhelming scientific evidence on its safety and efficacy.
In the wake of the attack, CDC Director Dr. Susan Monarez addressed her staff in a short town hall, later sending a follow-up message expressing that the dangers of misinformation have now led to deadly consequences, and pledged to restore trust through science, clarity, and evidence.
The Climate of Distrust
America is at a point where misinformation has painted vaccines as nefarious and every major U.S. scientific institution as corrupt. This rhetoric has been amplified by public figures, including Secretary Kennedy, who has previously characterized COVID-19 vaccines as dangerous and CDC leadership as morally compromised. Confidence in vaccines, once considered one of humanity’s greatest public health achievements, has fallen sharply not just in the U.S., but across the globe. In the UK, for example, public belief in the safety and effectiveness of vaccines dropped from 90% in 2018 to about 70% in 2023. The Covid vaccine rollout, initially hailed as a scientific miracle that saved countless lives, soon became entangled in politics, misinformation, and fears about safety. Social media has amplified doubts, fueling conspiracy theories and magnifying ultra-rare side effects.
However, this erosion of trust didn’t emerge overnight. Vaccine hesitancy has deep historical roots, from smallpox protests in the 19th century to the fallout from the discredited MMR-autism scandal of the late 1990s. Covid is merely one chapter in vaccine skepticism. This time around, young people, in particular, became the most distrustful. This could be for several reasons. First, younger people are generally less at risk from severe Covid. So, they believe they will do fine and look for reasons to not get vaccinated. It becomes easy to find bogus reasons because of rampant misinformation online.
The result is a vicious cycle. As skepticism spreads, childhood vaccination rates fall, and outbreaks of preventable diseases resurface. We’ve seen this most recently with measles cases popping up all around the United States.
A Dual Epidemic
Gun violence claims tens of thousands of American lives every year. White accessed a full weapon arsenal from his home and his motive was shaped by years of misinformation. This tragic event displayed two national emergencies—gun accessibility and the unchecked spread of falsehoods—mutually reinforce one another.
The Silence of Leadership, Amid National Turmoil
The CDC shooting did not occur in a vacuum. It unfolded against a backdrop of relentless mass shootings across the country. Just recently…
July 28, 2025, a Midtown Manhattan office shooting at a skyscraper housing NFL headquarters and multiple major financial firms resulted in four dead (including an NYPD officer) and several wounded. The shooter blamed the NFL for brain injuries and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).
In 2023 alone, nearly 47,000 people died from a gun-related injury in the United States. The U.S. gun homicide rate is 26x higher than that of other high-income countries. There is about one death by firearm every fifteen minutes.
And yet, public response to these tragedies often falls tragically flat. Following the CDC attack, President Donald Trump remained silent publicly. Secretary Kennedy did visit the campus but did not address employees directly during his visit; his first communication to them came days later—well after bullet-riddled doors had been paused, and many had already returned to the broken campus.
For CDC employees, this absence must feel like abandonment. It’s incredibly shocking and disheartening that federal public health scientists have become targets of not just health misinformation, but of violence.
What Comes Next
The CDC will patch its windows. Staff will return to the lab. Mourning will follow. But unless we address foundational issues, we allow the conditions that made this shooting possible to persist.
Three actions are imperative:
Secure Firearms Access It is no longer defensible to treat mass shootings as inevitable. This message has been said after every mass shooting, but firearm-related deaths continue to happen every day. Laws that restrict high-capacity weapons, tighten background checks as much as possible, and proactively disarm those in crisis are public health measures in their own right. There is no reason why a civilian needs an automatic gun.The last point is also especially important. Suicides by firearm make up more than half of gun-related deaths in the United States.
Rebuild Trust in ScienceHealth communication must be transparent, compassionate, and evidence-based. Misinformation should not be weaponized for political gain. Our leaders have a responsibility to tell the truth and to protect those who speak it. Everybody should be skeptical and do their own research.
Protect Federal Health Workers From FEMA to the CDC, public servants have recently become targets in culture wars. They deserve not only security upgrades, but support from national leadership affirming their mission.
The CDC shooting was a mirror reflecting America’s twin epidemics of gun violence and misinformation. Gunfire in Atlanta, Manhattan, Brooklyn, and countless other communities underscores a chilling truth: when misinformation thrives and weapons remain unchecked, public health itself is under siege. The cost of these two epidemics are measured in lost lives, broken families, and health institutions that are under constant threat of one of these two issues.
