This is change I can believe in. Gerberding has been awful. Not only has morale dropped on her watch (something that I observed anecdotally, and is backed up by these reports), but she also didn't stand up for the science when that science was politically incorrect.
More from CNN:
Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, will leave her post by noon on January 20, the day President-elect Barack Obama is to be sworn in to office.In an e-mail to the staff at the Department of Health and Human Services, which includes the CDC, outgoing HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt asked Gerberding and several other senior officials from his team to submit their letters of resignation.
"She did so, and it was accepted, and it is effective January 20," CDC spokeswoman Karen Hunter said.
Leavitt explained his move this way: "The next phase of Transition involves the departure of our team on January 20, and the arrival of President-elect Obama's team later that day," his e-mail said. "In order to create a clear path for leadership transition, I am attaching a list of senior leaders who will become the acting heads of their respective agencies and offices (or in some cases, remain as heads of their respective agencies and offices) until the new administration appoints individuals to various leadership positions."
Good riddance.
But the real significance of her legacy: given the form of her name, will her memory live on in the form of the verb "to gerberd"?