Susan Monarez was appointed Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) by President Donald Trump and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., becoming the agency’s first Senate-confirmed director, as mandated by a law established in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
She received the confirmation, but just a few weeks into her tenure, a post from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) indicated she was being ousted.
Dr. Susan Monarez, who was sworn in as director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on July 31, is being ousted, according to three sources familiar with the situation who spoke on the condition that they not be named because they were not authorized to share the information.
Three of the agency’s top officials have subsequently resigned. Apparently, they are upset about “misinformation” regarding vaccines, as well as impending staff cuts that appear to be on the horizon.
Daniel Jernigan, who led the CDC’s National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, told colleagues he was leaving due to “the current context in the Department.” The CDC’s Chief Medical Officer Debra Houry and the head of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, Demetre Deskalakis, also announced their departures.Houry’s message to CDC staffers warned about the “rise of misinformation” about vaccines. She also argued planned cuts to the agency’s budget will hurt the CDC.
Now, The New York Times is reporting that, despite demands from RFK Jr. that she quit or be fired, Monarez is going to remain at her post.
Abbe David Lowell and Mark S. Zaid, high-profile lawyers, disputed the department’s account, saying Dr. Monarez “has neither resigned nor received notification from the White House that she has been fired, and as a person of integrity and devoted to science, she will not resign.”Mr. Kennedy and his department, they said, “have set their sights on weaponizing public health for political gain and putting millions of American lives at risk.”Neither Dr. Monarez nor the H.H.S. responded to requests for comment.Dr. Monarez and Mr. Kennedy were at odds over vaccine policy, according to an administration official who is familiar with the events.
I have a few thoughts to provide additional background. To begin with, Susan Monarez worked as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Strategy and Analysis at the Executive Office of the President of the United States from January 2014 to January 2016 under Obama. In this capacity, she supposedly contributed to policy development related to health security and analysis for cross-agency initiatives.
Which is strange, because that is the period during which Dr. Anthony Fauci ignored concerns about gain-of-function research and assisted its development at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Based on that data point, I will project that she wasn’t suited for that job.
Then Monarez served as the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) during the late stages of the Biden administration, beginning her work in July 2025. In other words, she transitioned from the “acting” to the permanent position because the individual Trump originally wanted (Dr. David Weldon) did not have enough support to be confirmed in the Senate.
Weldon is a physician and former Republican congressman from Florida. Apparently, his “vaccine skepticism” and his disinclination to allow Big Pharma to dictate public health policy doomed his nomination.
In 2007, Weldon co-authored a “vaccine safety bill” with former Democratic Rep. Carolyn Maloney, which sought to give control over vaccine safety to an independent agency within HHS.The bill, which stalled in a House subcommittee, would “provide the independence necessary to ensure that vaccine safety research is robust, unbiased, free from conflict of interest criticism, and broadly accepted by the public at large,” Weldon said in a press release announcing the bill.
It will be interesting to see how all of this plays out in the coming weeks. To begin with, RFKJr is starting to implement his “gold standard” approach to the data used to assess policy.
And because it hasn’t been used for a while, here is a summary of what the Gold Standard in Science is.
Additionally, during a press conference featuring Trump’s cabinet yesterday, RFK Jr. announced that he would present some intriguing information about autism in September.
President Trump asked Kennedy for a progress update during a Cabinet meeting Tuesday, saying, “The autism is such a tremendous horror show. What’s happening in our country and some other countries, but mostly our country. How are you doing?”“We are doing very well,” Kennedy responded. “We will have announcements as promised in September, finding interventions, certain interventions, now that are clearly almost certainly causing autism. And we’re going to be able to address those in September.”
So, I personally find the timing of this drama and these departures…fascinating.
We will see how this all unfolds over the next few weeks.
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