The director of the top U.S. public health agency is being ousted after less than one month on the job, and several other top health officials have also resigned.
Susan Monarez isn’t “aligned with” U.S. President Donald Trump’s agenda and refused to resign, so the White House terminated her, spokesperson Kush Desai said Wednesday night.
Her lawyers said Monarez, who had been serving as the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), was targeted for standing up for science.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) had announced her departure in a brief social media post late Wednesday afternoon. Her lawyers responded with a statement that said she had neither resigned nor been told she was fired.
“When CDC Director Susan Monarez refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts, she chose protecting the public over serving a political agenda. For that, she has been targeted,” lawyers Mark Zaid and Abbe David Lowell wrote in a statement.
“This is not about one official. It is about the systematic dismantling of public health institutions, the silencing of experts, and the dangerous politicization of science. The attack on Dr. Monarez is a warning to every American: our evidence-based systems are being undermined from within,” the lawyers’ statement said.
The HHS announcement about Monarez coincided with the resignations this week of at least four top CDC officials.
A CDC sign is pictured at the agency’s Atlanta campus on Wednesday. (Alyssa Pointer/Reuters)
The CDC’s chief medical officer, Dr. Debra Houry, told Reuters that she and Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, are also out after resigning. They cited a rise in health misinformation especially on vaccines, attacks on science, the weaponization of public health and attempts to cut the agency’s budget and influence in their resignation letters, reviewed by Reuters.
Dr. Daniel Jernigan, director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, also stepped down, days after the agency reported the first U.S. human case of screwworm linked to an ongoing outbreak in Central America. Dr. Jennifer Layden, director of the CDC Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance and Technology, has also resigned, NBC News reported.
“Recently, the overstating of risks and the rise of misinformation have cost lives, as demonstrated by the highest number of U.S. measles cases in 30 years and the violent attack on our agency,” Houry wrote in her resignation letter.
HHS officials did not immediately respond to questions about the resignations or to the statement from Monarez’s lawyers.
Some public health experts decried the exodus.
“The CDC is being decapitated. This is an absolute disaster for public health,” said Dr. Robert Steinbrook of Public Citizen, a non-profit consumer advocacy organization.
“The loss of experienced, world-class infectious disease experts at CDC is directly related to the failed leadership of extremists currently in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services,” said Michael Osterholm, a University of Minnesota infectious disease researcher.
“These departures are a serious loss for America. They make our country less safe and less prepared for public health emergencies.”
Agency-wide call cancelled
The Washington Post first reported Monarez was being ousted earlier on Wednesday, citing multiple Trump administration officials familiar with the matter.
Citing several anonymous CDC employees, the newspaper reported that Monarez on Friday cancelled an agency-wide call that had been scheduled for Monday.
Monarez, a federal government scientist, was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on July 29 to lead the CDC after Trump nominated her earlier in the year. She was sworn in by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on July 31.
U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, a Washington Democrat, praised Monarez for standing up to Kennedy and called for him to be fired.
“We cannot let RFK Jr. burn what’s left of the CDC and our other critical health agencies to the ground,” she said in a statement Wednesday night.
The 50-year-old Monarez was the CDC’s 21st director. Her departure from the agency follows a shooting at the CDC’s headquarters in Atlanta earlier in the month.
Trump’s 2nd pick for role
Monarez was the Trump administration’s second nominee for the role. In March, the president withdrew his nomination of former Republican congressman and vaccine critic Dave Weldon, a Kennedy ally, just hours before his scheduled confirmation hearing.
Since being named the top U.S. health official, Kennedy has targeted vaccine policy, and in May, he withdrew a federal recommendation for COVID-19 shots for pregnant women and healthy children.
He followed up in June by firing all members of the CDC’s expert vaccine advisory panel, which recommends how vaccines are used and by whom, and replacing them with hand-picked advisers, including fellow anti-vaccine activists.
Kennedy has made major decisions on vaccines in the absence of a CDC director while Monarez awaited confirmation and continued to do so afterwards. The announcement that she was being ousted from the CDC comes on the same day Kennedy announced changes to COVID vaccine eligibility.