Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, a prominent figure in GBTQ healthcare who previously held top leadership roles in the New York City Health Department and the federal government, is joining Callen-Lorde as the organization’s next chief medical officer.
Daskalakis, who also served as the deputy coordinator of the White House mpox response in the wake of the 2022 outbreak, is joining Callen-Lorde just months after his high-profile resignation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) following that agency’s deeply controversial — and widely criticized — changes to vaccine policy, among other major concerns. That move prompted Daskalakis to write an open letter expressing that he was “unable to serve in an environment that treats CDC as a tool to generate policies and materials that do not reflect scientific reality and are designed to hurt rather than to improve the public’s health.”
Daskalakis’ resignation made national headlines — and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt publicly disparaged him in response, saying he was “not someone we want in this administration anyway” after he referred to pregnant individuals as pregnant people — a much more inclusive term that avoids ignoring non-binary pregnant people.
Just over three months later, Daskalakis said he decided that working in a leadership role at Callen-Lorde — which provides comprehensive care to LGBTQ New Yorkers regardless of their ability to pay — gives him the opportunity to make the greatest impact during the Trump era.
“With what’s happening right now in health, especially LGBTQ health, community health is the most important thing right now because so much mis- and disinformation is coming from the federal government,” Daskalakis said in an interview with Gay City News. “For me, [the federal government] is no longer the place where I think I can make an impact, so going to what I think is the premier LGBTQ community health center in the country makes me really excited.”
Daskalakis plans to help Callen-Lorde navigate the turbulent federal landscape at a time when the Trump administration has aggressively targeted transgender healthcare and queer healthcare in general. Daskalakis told Gay City News that his “goal is to steady the ship along with [CEO] Patrick [McGovern], given that there’s a lot of choppy seas out there because of what’s happening in the federal government.”
McGovern, for his part, expressed strong confidence in Daskalakis’ ability to make a positive mark on Callen-Lorde in his new post.
“Demetre’s experience is everything that Callen-Lorde and the LGBTQ+ community need right now,” McGovern said in a written statement. “He has been a leader in the treatment and prevention of HIV and will use this next chapter to bring us closer to ending the epidemic. He successfully led the national response to mpox, and he has defended science-backed standards of healthcare at a time when medically necessary healthcare for transgender people is under attack.”
Regardless of the federal government, though, Daskalakis emphasized the role of community healthcare and underscored the importance of staying true to the mission, which he said is to serve the health of LGBTQ people in New York City.
Callen-Lorde’s hiring of Daskalakis represents somewhat of a full-circle moment: He first worked with the organization in 1997 when he was rotating clinics as a resident. His career blossomed from there, becoming an HIV and infectious disease physician, researcher, and professor at NYU School of Medicine/Bellevue Hospital and Icahn School of Medicine/Mount Sinai before stepping up to work at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in 2014. He served as assistant commissioner in the Bureau of HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control and subsequently rose to become deputy commissioner in the Division of Disease Control.
Daskalakis entered the national arena in 2021 when the Biden administration hired him to direct the CDC’s Division of HIV Prevention and serve in other posts, including fighting mpox and COVID-19.
When asked about how he could apply the lessons from his work at the federal level to his new post at Callen-Lorde, Daskalakis again redirected the focus to the community level. In the absence of federal leadership, he said, “what then becomes important is that you have people who are able to distinguish the signal from the noise around science and who are able to really lift the voice of the community.”
“Very often, when you think about the way that you do good public health or good medical service, you need a couple of things,” Daskalakis explained. “You need to have political will, you need to have good science, and you need to have like really strong co-creation with the community.”
He added: “And so that’s why I’m going from this way up here, back to the grassroots, because I think that what we do today is going to be that sort of template — the blueprint — for what health is going to be like in the future when we have that strong political will that we need to succeed.”
Daskalakis, whose hiring was announced two days after World AIDS Day, wrote in a recent article that there needs to be a new HIV strategy that focuses on community and people, rather than a virus or an individual’s HIV status. Recalling his work in HIV testing at commercial sex venues in New York City, Daskalakis said he had plenty of options and services to refer to individuals who were living with HIV. But there were fewer options available for those who had other health challenges or who were at risk for HIV or STIs.
Daskalakis said he subsequently worked in the New York City Health Department to create what he described as a “status-neutral HIV prevention and care service delivery.”
“That was really the idea that an HIV test unlocks, in any direction, the things that you need to keep you healthy,” he said. “And so now, more than ever, focusing on the health of the community and not just one virus or another is really, I think, the key strategy to be able to make sure we can move forward in a holistic way — and actually make America healthy again.”
In addition to the fight against HIV/AIDS, Daskalakis is returning to New York at a time when mpox cases have remained elevated for months across the five boroughs. There have been at least 60 cases in each of the last two calendar months.
“As we’re seeing some cases in New York City, one of the important findings is we’re not seeing a surge of cases like we had a few years ago,” Daskalakis said. “And so it really speaks to the importance of making sure that if you’re someone who needs an mpox vaccine that you get it, and that you’re also just aware that mpox is out there so you can make the right decisions for you. I think we know from my time in the White House running the mpox response — which I learned from Michael Callen, from Callen-Lorde — is that the right way to do harm reduction, for sexually transmitted infections, is to give people the facts and let them really do the best they can from within their context.”
Daskalakis encouraged at-risk individuals to complete the two-dose vaccine regimen for mpox — and he stressed that it is not too late to get a second dose for those who received one several years ago.
“The other important part is, if you see a zit and you’re like, well, that’s weird, it may not be a zit,” Daskalakis said. “Making sure that you’re tested is also really important to make sure that you can also, you know, modify your sexual behaviors while you have the infection to prevent forward transmission.”
Daskalakis’ return to New York City also coincides with a change in city government. He is part of Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani’s transition team for health — a role he said he is “thrilled” to have. The transition team, he said, has yet to hold any meetings, but he said he looks forward to advising the new administration.
“The advice that I have is to really engage with scientists and engage with your public health experts,” Daskalakis said. “I realize that you have the A team and that folks will really help you make sure that you make New York not only a more affordable place, but a healthier place while you’re at it.
