The White House has fired Susan Monarez, Director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), after she refused to resign amid a power struggle with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over sweeping changes to vaccine policy.
Monarez, who was confirmed by the Senate less than a month ago, had been under pressure to step aside after declining to endorse Kennedy’s controversial overhaul, which includes restricting access to Covid-19 vaccines and cutting funding for new vaccine research.
Her lawyers said she had not resigned and had received no formal notification from the president regarding her dismissal. “As a presidential appointee, senate-confirmed officer, only the president himself can fire her,” they argued in a statement, rejecting the White House’s termination notice as “legally deficient.”
The White House, however, confirmed the decision late Wednesday. “As her attorney’s statement makes abundantly clear, Susan Monarez is not aligned with the President’s agenda of Making America Healthy Again,” spokesman Kush Desai said.
The dismissal triggered a wave of resignations at the CDC. At least five senior officials stepped down, including Demetre Daskalakis, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, who said: “I am unable to serve in an environment that treats CDC as a tool to generate policies and materials that do not reflect scientific reality.”
Other high-profile departures include CDC’s chief medical officer Debra Houry and Daniel Jernigan, head of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases. A union representing CDC workers said staff felt “forced to walk away” because “politics left them no choice,” stressing that “vaccines save lives.”
Monarez, a career health scientist, was sworn in by Kennedy on July 31. Her removal comes amid rising tensions within the CDC, which recently endured an armed attack by a man reportedly motivated by anger over Covid-19 vaccines. Hundreds of current and former employees have since signed an open letter accusing Kennedy of “weaponizing public health for political gain and putting millions of American lives at risk.”
The escalating fallout underscores the deepening crisis at the nation’s top public health agency as vaccine policy becomes a flashpoint in U.S. politics.
