Susan Monarez, the recently ousted director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), refused to fire top agency leaders and approve vaccine changes pushed by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s hand-picked panel, according to Richard Besser, CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and former acting CDC director, Politico reported.
Besser told reporters on Thursday that he spoke with Monarez on Wednesday afternoon, just hours before HHS announced on social media that she was “no longer director,” the news outlet stated.
“She said that there were two things she would never do in the job,” the news outlet quoted Basser as saying. “She said she was asked to do both of those, one in terms of firing her leadership, who are talented civil servants like herself, and the other was to rubber stamp [vaccine] recommendations that flew in the face of science, and she was not going to do either of those things.”
Kennedy restructures ACIP, Monarez pushes back
In June, Kennedy fired all existing members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) and replaced them with vaccine-skeptical appointees. ACIP, composed of outside experts, votes on changes to adult and childhood vaccine schedules.
Monarez reportedly attempted to implement guardrails on the reconstituted panel, including trying to replace the federal official overseeing ACIP with someone possessing more policy experience and posting evidence and meeting slides for public review weeks in advance.
“Both of these attempts failed,” former Chief Medical Officer Debra Houry and former National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases Director Demetre Daskalakis told Politico, shortly before their resignations.
The panel is scheduled to meet in mid-September to vote on eligibility for updated COVID-19 vaccines this fall, according to a Federal Register notice.
HHS pressures Monarez to resign
Monarez was called into a meeting on Monday with Kennedy and his top aide Stefanie Spear, where she was pressured to resign, Politico cited a source as saying. She declined. HHS announced her departure the following afternoon on X, the social media platform.
“When CDC Director Susan Monarez refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts, she chose protecting the public over serving a political agenda,” attorneys Mark S. Zaid and Abbe David Lowell said in a statement. “For that, she has been targeted. … As a person of integrity, she will not resign.”
The White House later confirmed her termination, with spokesperson Kush Desai stating:
“Susan Monarez is not aligned with the President’s agenda of Making America Healthy Again.”
Career CDC officials resign
Following Monarez’s ouster, three top career CDC officials announced their resignations: Houry, Daskalakis, and National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases Director Daniel Jernigan.
COVID-19 vaccine policy
The US Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday (August 27) approved updated COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer, Moderna, and Novavax but narrowed their recommended use, particularly for younger adults and children. The changes mark a significant shift from previous guidance, which recommended annual shots for all Americans six months and older.
