Fired US CDC director clashed with Kennedy on vaccine policy

WASHINGTON - The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director Susan Monarez was fired on Aug 27 after resisting changes to vaccine policy that were advanced by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr and that she believed contradicted scientific evidence, a close associate said on Aug 28.

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 CDC, 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 Aug 28 in a show of defiance toward Mr Kennedy and his unscientific claims about vaccines.

Mr Richard Besser, former acting director of the CDC, told reporters that he spoke with Dr Monarez on Aug 27.

“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,” Mr Besser said.

He added that Dr Monarez refused to dismiss her leadership team without cause.

The three top CDC officials who quit after Dr Monarez’s dismissal told Reuters on Aug 28 they too had resigned over anti-vaccine policies and misinformation pushed by Mr Kennedy and his team.

Mr Kennedy has made sweeping changes to vaccine policies since taking office in 2025, including

firing its entire expert vaccine advisory panel

and replacing them with like-minded anti-vaccine activists and other hand-picked advisers.

The White House named Mr Jim O’Neill, currently deputy secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, as interim leader of the CDC, an administration official said.

“(Dr Monarez) was not aligned with the President’s mission to Make America Healthy Again, and the secretary asked her to resign. She said she would, and then she said she wouldn’t, so the President fired her,” White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said on Aug 28.

Escorted off campus

The departed officials – CDC chief medical officer Debra Houry, National Centre for Immunisation and Respiratory Diseases director Demetre Daskalakis and National Centre for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases director Daniel Jernigan – were escorted from the CDC’s Atlanta headquarters campus on Aug 28, according to four sources familiar with the situation.

CDC staff, many wearing green shirts and ribbons as a symbol of support for public health scientists, clapped, hugged and cheered them outside the gates.

The site was just steps away from where a gunman had sprayed hundreds of rounds of bullets into the building on Aug 8, killing a police officer before turning the gun on himself.

Dr Houry and Dr Daskalakis cited a rise in health misinformation, particularly on vaccines, attacks on science, the weaponisation of public health, and attempts to cut the agency’s budget in their resignation letters reviewed by Reuters.

“I’m a doctor. I took the Hippocratic oath that said, ‘First, do no harm.’ I believe harm is going to happen, and so I can’t be a part of it,” Dr Daskalakis said in an interview.

HHS did not respond to a request for comment.

Since taking office in January, Mr Trump has wrested control over US government agencies long seen as independent from presidential politics as they oversee such matters as elections, stock markets and labour unrest.

Dr Monarez is one of at least three Senate-confirmed regulatory officials Mr Trump has moved to fire in recent days, including

Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook

and Surface Transportation Board member Robert Primus.

Mr Kennedy declined to comment during an Aug 28 interview on the specifics of the departures.

“The agency is in trouble, and we need to fix it and we are fixing it. And it may be that some people should not be working there anymore,” he told Fox News’ Fox and Friends programme.

Mr Besser said Mr Kennedy insisted Dr Monarez accept all of the revamped vaccine committee’s future recommendations.

The CDC director traditionally has the final say on vaccine policy and can accept or reject committee recommendations.

The CDC has been heavily criticised by health experts in recent months for dropping its recommendation that pregnant women be vaccinated against Covid-19 and for

narrowing its backing of the shots

for children with health complications.

During her confirmation hearing, Dr Monarez said she has not seen evidence linking vaccines and autism, a view that aligns with accepted science but not with Mr Kennedy.

Since taking the job, Mr Kennedy has made false and unscientific claims about vaccines, including that the measles vaccine contains cells from aborted foetuses and the mumps vaccination does not work.

Mr Kennedy launched a department-wide effort to investigate the rise in autism rates among children in the US, which he has said, without any scientific evidence, is due to “environmental toxins”. REUTERS