US CDC Director Susan Monarez was fired on Wednesday after resisting changes to vaccine policy that were advanced by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jnr and that she believed contradicted scientific evidence, a close associate said on Thursday.
The revelation and interviews with top officials who resigned in the wake of the director’s firing underscored the growing division over the US approach to public health and the upheaval at the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, which protects US health and has played a global role in eradicating smallpox, reducing polio, and controlling HIV/Aids.
Fellow CDC employees cheered the three departing officials as they left the Atlanta campus on Thursday in a show of defiance toward Kennedy and his unscientific claims about vaccines.
Richard Besser, former acting director of the CDC, told reporters that he spoke with Monarez on Wednesday.
“She said that there were two things she would never do in the job. One was anything that was deemed illegal, and the second was anything that she felt flew in the face of science, and she said she was asked to do both of those,” Besser said. He also said Monarez refused to dismiss her leadership team without cause.
Former CDC official Deb Houry gets a hug as CDC staff and supporters line up outside the agency’s global headquarters on Wednesday to honour her and two other leaders who resigned in the wake of Susan Monarez being fired. Photo: AFP
The three top CDC officials who quit after Monarez’s dismissal said on Thursday they too had resigned over anti-vaccine policies and misinformation pushed by Kennedy and his team.