{"id":103166,"date":"2025-08-28T11:39:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-28T11:39:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/103166\/"},"modified":"2025-08-28T11:39:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-28T11:39:11","slug":"u-s-cdc-chief-fired-after-less-than-a-month-in-role-four-top-officials-resign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/103166\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. CDC chief fired after less than a month in role, four top officials resign"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Susan Monarez\u2019s attorneys denied she had resigned or had been fired, adding in a statement that \u2018as a person of integrity and devoted to science, she will not resign.’Kevin Mohatt\/Reuters<\/p>\n

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Susan Monarez has been fired, the White House said on Wednesday, less than a month after being sworn in, and four senior officials have resigned amid growing tensions over vaccine policies and public health directives.<\/p>\n

Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has made sweeping changes to vaccine policies, including withdrawing federal recommendations for COVID shots for pregnant women and healthy children in May, and firing all members of the CDC\u2019s expert vaccine advisory panel in June whom he replaced with hand-picked advisers including fellow anti-vaccine activists.<\/p>\n

One of the officials that quit said the CDC\u2019s vaccination recommendations were putting young Americans and pregnant women at risk.<\/p>\n

White House spokesman Kush Desai late on Wednesday said Monarez was not \u201caligned with the President\u2019s agenda of Making America Healthy Again\u201d.<\/p>\n

Since she had \u201crefused to resign despite informing HHS leadership of her intent to do so, the White House has terminated Monarez from her position with the CDC,\u201d Desai said.<\/p>\n

Monarez\u2019s attorneys, Mark S. Zaid and Abbe David Lowell, denied she had resigned or had been fired, adding in a statement that \u201cas a person of integrity and devoted to science, she will not resign.\u201d<\/p>\n

Monarez\u2019s attorneys accused Kennedy of targeting her for refusing to support \u201cunscientific directives\u201d and dismiss health experts.<\/p>\n

CDC Chief Medical Officer Debra Houry and National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases Director Demetre Daskalakis have resigned, Houry told Reuters. They cited a rise in health misinformation especially on vaccines, attacks on science, the weaponization of public health, and attempts to cut the agency\u2019s budget and influence in their resignation letters, reviewed by Reuters.<\/p>\n

RFK Jr. fires all members of U.S. CDC vaccine panel<\/a><\/p>\n

National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases Director Daniel Jernigan also stepped down, days after the agency reported the first U.S. human case of screwworm linked to an ongoing outbreak in Central America. Jen Layden, Director of the CDC Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance and Technology, has also resigned, NBC News reported.<\/p>\n

\u201cRecently, 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,\u201d Houry wrote in her resignation.<\/p>\n

Budget cuts proposed by President Donald Trump\u2019s administration and plans by Kennedy to reorganize the agency would harm its ability to address these challenges.<\/p>\n

The White House sought to cut the CDC\u2019s budget by almost US$3.6-billion, leaving it with a US$4-billion 2026 budget, and Kennedy announced a layoff plan earlier this year that cut 2,400 CDC employees, though some 700 were rehired.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am not able to serve in this role any longer because of the ongoing weaponizing of public health,\u201d Daskalakis wrote. He declined to comment for this story.<\/p>\n

HHS did not provide a reason for Monarez\u2019s departure from the agency and did not address the resignations.<\/p>\n

\u201cSusan Monarez is no longer director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We thank her for her dedicated service to the American people,\u201d a posting on the department\u2019s official X account said.<\/p>\n

The CDC has faced mounting challenges under Kennedy\u2019s leadership, including a shooting at its Atlanta headquarters<\/a> earlier this month. The union representing CDC workers said the incident \u201ccompounds months of mistreatment, neglect, and vilification that CDC staff have endured.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fiona Havers, a former CDC official who resigned in June over vaccine policy, described the recent resignations as \u201cdevastating for the CDC,\u201d adding that the departing leaders acted as a \u201cbuffer between career CDC scientists and RFK Jr. and this administration\u2019s attacks on public health.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a pointed resignation letter addressed to Houry and posted by Daskalakis on X Wednesday evening, Daskalakis said the CDC\u2019s vaccination recommendations were putting young Americans and pregnant women at risk and disparaged Kennedy\u2019s decision to fire the panel.<\/p>\n

He said the health agency\u2019s policies would return America to a pre-vaccine era where only the strong survive, risking the well-being and security of the country.<\/p>\n

Kennedy announced further changes to COVID vaccine eligibility on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Monarez, a federal government scientist, was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on July 29 after Trump nominated her earlier in the year and was sworn in by Kennedy on July 31.<\/p>\n

She was Trump\u2019s second nominee for the role after he withdrew his nomination in March of former Republican congressman and vaccine critic Dave Weldon, a Kennedy ally, just hours before his scheduled confirmation hearing.<\/p>\n

Monarez\u2019s comments during her confirmation hearing, in which she said she has not seen evidence linking vaccines and autism, contrasted her with Kennedy, who has promoted the discredited claim of such a link.<\/p>\n

Kennedy has launched a department-wide effort to investigate the causes of the condition and said on Wednesday there would be news soon on that front.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have announcements that are coming out in September on autism of changes that we are going to make that will dramatically impact the effects,\u201d he said during an event with Texas Governor Gregg Abbott. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Susan Monarez\u2019s attorneys denied she had resigned or had been fired, adding in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":103167,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,43,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,44,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,41,39,42,40,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-103166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-headlines","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-news","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103166\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}