Tim Tai

Editor’s note, Sept. 5: This article has been updated to attribute information about the content of the panel discussion to attendees interviewed by the News. Other details previously included in this story about the event, which was open to Yale community members but which organizers said was closed to the press, have been removed. A photograph of the event that was taken without the photographer having identified their affiliation with the News to organizers has also been removed. The News regrets that it did not clarify the event’s conditions in advance.

Mandy Cohen YSM ’05, a former director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, spoke Thursday on a panel about the changing political landscape of public health.

Cohen was joined by Megan Ranney, the dean of Yale’s School of Public Health. Law professor Abbe Gluck moderated the conversation, which revolved around the central question of what it means to be involved in health policy in the current political climate, according to attendees.

The event was open to all Yale students who registered, but closed to the press, according to a Law School webpage.

One day before the panel, Cohen co-authored a New York Times opinion piece with eight other former CDC directors expressing concern over the state of the nation’s public health system and condemning the behavior of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health and human services secretary.

“We are worried about the wide-ranging impact that all these decisions will have on America’s health security,” Cohen and former CDC directors wrote in the piece, citing a variety of policy moves. “This is unacceptable, and it should alarm every American, regardless of political leanings.”

The panel took place a week after President Donald Trump’s White House fired Susan Monarez from her position as CDC director, less than a month into her term.

Roselis Emiliano SPH ’27, a first-year student at the School of Public Health who attended the panel described how Cohen and Ranney expressed concerns about the public health landscape, including changing standards for scientific evidence

“The panel was a confirmation of what I’d been seeing in the news,” Emiliano said. “People in the CDC, many who had been there for decades shaping health as we know it, falling back in disappointment and feeling dejected.”

Laurie Jimenez ’26, who is in her fourth year of Yale College’s joint five-year program with the School of Public Health, described Cohen’s emphasis on the importance of building trust with the public, as well as preventing atomization by building partnerships across disciplines.

“They really highlighted collaboration and being part of coalitions, where you can be engaged in discussion with others who are thinking about these problems in public health,” Jimenez said.

The panel took place inside the Sterling Law Building at 127 Wall St.