The Trump administration fired Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Susan Monarez on Wednesday after she refused to resign amid pressure to change vaccine policies, sparking the immediate resignation of at least four senior CDC officials and leaving the nation’s top public health agency in unprecedented turmoil.
Monarez, who was sworn in just four weeks ago as the first Senate-confirmed CDC director, clashed with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over vaccine policy changes, according to her attorneys. The White House said she was terminated because she was “not aligned with the President’s agenda of Making America Healthy Again.”
Her lawyers disputed the firing, arguing that only President Donald Trump himself can dismiss a Senate-confirmed appointee, setting up a potential legal showdown over her removal.
Within hours of the announcement, four senior CDC officials submitted resignations, including Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, and Dr. Debra Houry, the agency’s chief medical officer.
In a public resignation letter, Daskalakis wrote he was “unable to serve in an environment that treats CDC as a tool to generate policies and materials that do not reflect scientific reality.” He accused leadership of putting “people of dubious intent” in charge of vaccine policy and warned their actions would “result in death and disability of vulnerable children and adults.”
The leadership exodus comes as Kennedy, a longtime vaccine critic, has implemented sweeping changes to federal vaccine policy. He fired all members of the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee in June, replacing them with vaccine skeptics, and cut $500 million in research funding for mRNA vaccines.
On Wednesday, the Food and Drug Administration also narrowed eligibility for updated COVID-19 vaccines to primarily those 65 and older or with underlying health conditions, a significant departure from previous guidance recommending vaccination for everyone 6 months and older.
The crisis unfolds just three weeks after a gunman, reportedly motivated by opposition to COVID vaccines, attacked the CDC headquarters in Atlanta, killing a police officer and firing more than 180 shots into agency buildings.
Public health experts expressed alarm at the leadership vacuum. “The CDC is being decapitated. This is an absolute disaster for public health,” said Dr. Robert Steinbrook of Public Citizen.
Democratic senators called for Kennedy’s removal, while Republican lawmakers said the departures would “require oversight.”
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