The White House announced on Wednesday that U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Susan Monarez was fired less than a month after taking office, with four other senior officials resigning amid rising tensions over vaccine policies and public health directives.
Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has initiated significant changes to vaccine policies, including withdrawing federal recommendations for COVID shots for pregnant women and healthy children in May, and in June, he fired all members of the CDC’s expert vaccine advisory panel, replacing them with hand-picked advisers, including fellow anti-vaccine activists.
One of the officials who resigned stated that the CDC’s vaccination recommendations were endangering young Americans and pregnant women.
Late on Wednesday, White House spokesman Kush Desai said Monarez was not “aligned with the President’s agenda of Making America Healthy Again.”
Desai added that since Monarez “refused to resign despite informing HHS leadership of her intent to do so, the White House has terminated Monarez from her position with the CDC.”
However, Monarez’s attorneys, Mark S. Zaid and Abbe David Lowell, denied that she had resigned or been fired, adding in a statement that “as a person of integrity and devoted to science, she will not resign.”
Monarez’s attorneys accused Kennedy of targeting her for refusing to support “unscientific directives” and dismiss health experts.
CDC Chief Medical Officer Debra Houry and National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases Director Demetre Daskalakis have resigned. In their resignation letters, reviewed by 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’s budget and influence.
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, as reported by NBC News.
In her resignation, Houry wrote, “Recently, 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.”
Budget cuts proposed by President Donald Trump’s administration and Kennedy’s plans to reorganize the agency would harm its ability to address these challenges.
The White House sought to cut the CDC’s budget by nearly $3.6 billion, leaving it with a $4 billion 2026 budget. Earlier this year, Kennedy announced a layoff plan that cut 2,400 CDC employees, though some 700 were rehired.
Daskalakis wrote, “I am not able to serve in this role any longer because of the ongoing weaponizing of public health.”
HHS did not provide a reason for Monarez’s departure and did not comment on the resignations.
An official post on the department’s X account stated, “Susan Monarez is no longer director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We thank her for her dedicated service to the American people.”
The CDC has faced growing challenges under Kennedy’s leadership, including a shooting at its Atlanta headquarters earlier this month. The union representing CDC workers said the incident “compounds months of mistreatment, neglect, and vilification that CDC staff have endured.”
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.”
Kennedy announced further changes to COVID vaccine eligibility on Wednesday.
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.
She was Trump’s 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.
Monarez’s comments during her confirmation hearing, in which she said she has not seen evidence linking vaccines and autism, were in stark contrast to Kennedy, who has promoted the debunked claim of such a link.
Kennedy has launched a department-wide effort to investigate the causes of the condition and said on Wednesday that there would be news on that front soon.
During an event with Texas Governor Gregg Abbott, he said, “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.”
