CDC Director Fired After Vaccine Policy Clash With Kennedy
CDC Director Susan Monarez was dismissed on Wednesday following a standoff with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over vaccine policy, according to a close associate. Monarez reportedly opposed changes she believed ran counter to established scientific evidence.
Her removal has deepened divisions over U.S. public health strategy and triggered turmoil at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an agency long credited with eradicating smallpox, reducing polio, and advancing HIV/AIDS control.
In protest, three senior officials resigned after Monarez’s ouster, citing frustration with what they described as anti-vaccine policies and the spread of misinformation by Kennedy’s team. The departing leaders include Chief Medical Officer Debra Houry, National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases Director Demetre Daskalakis, and National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases Director Daniel Jernigan.
Since taking office earlier this year, Kennedy has reshaped federal vaccine policy, disbanding the CDC’s expert vaccine advisory panel and replacing members with activists and advisers aligned with his views.
The White House has appointed Jim O’Neill, deputy secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, as interim CDC director, according to the Washington Post.
“Dr. Monarez was not aligned with the president’s mission to ‘Make America Healthy Again,’” White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said Thursday. “The secretary asked her to resign. She initially agreed but later refused, so the president terminated her.”
Escorted Off Campus
Sources said Houry, Daskalakis, and Jernigan were escorted out of the CDC’s Atlanta headquarters on Thursday. Colleagues in green shirts and ribbons — symbols of solidarity with public health scientists — gathered at the gates to applaud and embrace them.
Their departure came just weeks after a gunman opened fire at the CDC campus on August 8, killing a police officer before taking his own life.
In resignation letters reviewed by Reuters, Houry and Daskalakis condemned the surge of health misinformation, political attacks on science, and budget cuts aimed at weakening the CDC.
