US CDC chief out after just weeks in role, challenges ouster as four top officials resign
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Dr Susan Monarez, a federal government scientist, was confirmed by the US Senate on July 29 to lead the CDC.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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WASHINGTON – US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director Susan Monarez has been fired, the White House said on Aug 27, less than a month after being sworn in, and four senior officials have resigned amid growing tensions over vaccine policies and public health directives.
Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr has made sweeping changes to vaccine policies, including withdrawing federal recommendations for Covid-19 shots for pregnant women and healthy children
One of the officials who quit said the CDC’s vaccination recommendations were putting young Americans and pregnant women at risk.
White House spokesman Kush Desai late on Aug 27 said that Dr Monarez was not “aligned with the President’s agenda of ‘Making America Healthy Again’”.
As she had “refused to resign despite informing HHS (Department of Health and Human Services) leadership of her intent to do so, the White House has terminated Dr Monarez from her position with the CDC”, Mr Desai said.
Dr Monarez’s attorneys, Mr Mark Zaid and Mr Abbe David Lowell, denied she had resigned or had been fired, adding in a statement that “as a person of integrity and devoted to science, she will not resign”.
Dr Monarez’s attorneys accused Mr Kennedy of targeting her for refusing to support “unscientific directives” and dismiss health experts.
CDC chief medical officer Debra Houry told Reuters that she and National Centre for Immunisation and Respiratory Diseases director Demetre Daskalakis are out after resigning.
They cited a rise in health misinformation especially on vaccines, attacks on science, the weaponisation of public health, and attempts to cut the agency’s budget and influence in their resignation letters, reviewed by Reuters.
National Centre for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases director Daniel Jernigan has also resigned, days after the CDC reported the first US human case of screwworm
Dr Jen Layden, director of the CDC Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance and Technology, has resigned, NBC News reported.
Dr Houry wrote in her resignation letter: “Recently, the overstating of risks and the rise of misinformation have cost lives, as demonstrated by the highest number of US measles cases in 30 years and the violent attack on our agency.”
Budget cuts proposed by President Donald Trump’s administration and plans by Mr Kennedy to reorganise the agency would harm its ability to address these challenges.
‘Ongoing weaponisation’
The White House sought to cut the CDC’s budget by almost US$3.6 billion (S$4.63 billion) in its 2026 budget proposal, leaving it with a US$4 billion budget, and Mr Kennedy announced a layoff plan earlier in 2025 that cut 2,400 CDC employees, though some 700 were rehired.
“I am not able to serve in this role any longer because of the ongoing weaponising of public health,” Dr Daskalakis wrote in his letter.
He declined to comment for this story.
HHS did not provide a reason for Dr Monarez’s departure from the agency and did not address the resignations.
“Susan Monarez is no longer director of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. We thank her for her dedicated service to the American people,” a posting on the department’s official account on social media platform X said.
The CDC has faced mounting challenges under Mr Kennedy’s leadership, including a shooting at its Atlanta headquarters
The union representing CDC workers said the incident “compounds months of mistreatment, neglect and vilification that CDC staff have endured”.
Dr Fiona Havers, a former CDC official who resigned in June over vaccine policy, described the recent resignations as “devastating for the CDC”, adding that the departing leaders acted as a “buffer between career CDC scientists and RFK Jr and this administration’s attacks on public health”.
Sweeping changes
In a pointed resignation letter addressed to Dr Houry and posted by Dr Daskalakis on X on the evening of Aug 27, Dr Daskalakis said the CDC’s vaccination recommendations were putting young Americans and pregnant women at risk and disparaged Mr Kennedy’s decision to fire the panel.
He said the health agency’s policies would return America to a pre-vaccine era where only the strong survive, risking the well-being and security of the country.
Mr Kennedy announced further changes to Covid-19 vaccine eligibility on Aug 27.
Dr Monarez, a federal government scientist, was confirmed by the US Senate on July 29 to lead the CDC after President Donald Trump nominated her
Dr Monarez was the Trump administration’s second nominee for the role after he withdrew his nomination in March of former Republican congressman and vaccine critic Dave Weldon, a Mr Kennedy ally, just hours before his scheduled confirmation hearing.
Dr Monarez’s comments during her confirmation hearing, in which she said she has not seen evidence linking vaccines and autism, contrasted her with Mr Kennedy, who has promoted the discredited claim of such a link.
Mr Kennedy has launched a department-wide effort to investigate the causes of the condition and said on Aug 27 there would be news soon on that front.
“We have announcements that are coming out in September on autism of changes that we are going to make that will dramatically impact the effects,” he said during an event with Texas Governor Gregg Abbott. REUTERS
