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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial
ARTICLE VIEW:
Ex-CDC director tells senators that RFK Jr. required political sign-off
on decisions, called for firings without cause
By Jacqueline Howard, Jamie Gumbrecht, Sarah Owermohle, CNN
Updated:
5:48 PM EDT, Wed September 17, 2025
Source: CNN
Dr. Susan Monarez, former director of the US Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, said in a Senate committee hearing on Wednesday
that US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. put
politics before public health when he required that all CDC policy and
personnel decisions be cleared by political staff.
Among those possible policy decisions: changes to the childhood vaccine
schedule.
Monarez was ousted last month, just 29 days into her tenure as CDC
director, amid clashes with Kennedy over vaccine policies. Dr. Debra
Houry, who stepped down from her role as the CDC’s chief medical
officer in protest after Monarez’s ouster, also testified in
Wednesday’s hearing.
“I was fired for holding the line on scientific integrity,” Monarez
told the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.
“I had refused to commit to approving vaccine recommendations without
evidence, fire career officials without cause, or resign.”
Monarez: Changes could restrict vaccine access
In the hearing, Monarez offered new details about her brief tenure as
CDC director, including saying Kennedy issued a directive that CDC
policy and personnel decisions required prior approval from political
staff — a break from the practice of past administrations.
Monarez also said that on August 2, she learned from media reports that
Kennedy had removed of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization
Practices, or ACIP — an influential group of outside experts who
advise the agency on vaccinations – essentially being blindsided by
the news.
Then, “on the morning of August 25, Secretary Kennedy demanded two
things of me that were inconsistent with my oath of office and the
ethics required of a public official,” Monarez said. “He directed
me to commit in advance to approving every ACIP recommendation
regardless of the scientific evidence. He also directed me to dismiss
career officials responsible for vaccine policy, without cause. He said
if I was unwilling to do both, I should resign.”
Monarez said she told Kennedy that she could not “pre-approve
recommendations without reviewing the evidence” and that she had no
basis to fire scientific experts.
Monarez described Kennedy as “very upset, very animated” during
their meeting. “He said that the childhood vaccine schedule would be
changing starting in September and I needed to be on board with it,”
Monarez said, adding that Kennedy said he had spoken to President
Donald Trump “every day” about such changes.
“On August 25, I could have stayed silent, agreed to the demands, and
no one would have known,” Monarez said. “What the public would have
seen were scientists dismissed without cause and vaccine protections
quietly eroded — all under the authority of a Senate-confirmed
director with ‘unimpeachable credentials.’ I could have kept the
office, the title, but I would have lost the one thing that cannot be
replaced: my integrity.”
Kennedy removed all 17 sitting members of ACIP in June. The committee
now includes an entirely of experts, including five who were announced
this week. They are scheduled to meet Thursday and Friday to discuss
Covid-19 vaccines as well as immunizations against hepatitis B and
measles, mumps, rubella and varicella. Several of the new members have
made unproven claims about vaccines, including one who said, without
evidence, that Covid shots are causing “unprecedented levels of death
and harm in young people.”
White House spokesperson Kush Desai said in a statement Wednesday,
“No one, including Secretary Kennedy and President Trump, is calling
to throw out the entire childhood vaccine schedule or eliminate access
to lifesaving vaccines. Anyone suggesting that such actions are even on
the table does not know what they are talking about.”
Monarez said the new composition of the committee has “raised
concerns from the medical community,” and she’s “very nervous”
about the ACIP meeting this week.
“There is a real risk that recommendations could be made restricting
access to vaccines for children and others in need without rigorous
scientific review,” she said. “With no permanent CDC director in
place, those recommendations could be adopted. The stakes are not
theoretical. We already have seen the largest measles outbreak in more
than 30 years, which claimed the lives of two children. If vaccine
protections are weakened, preventable diseases will return.”
Republican Sen. Rand Paul, an ophthalmologist from Kentucky, grilled
Monarez on Covid-19 shots and CDC’s hepatitis B vaccine
recommendations — both of which appear on the CDC vaccine advisers’
agenda this week — saying there is “no medical reason” to
vaccinate children against hepatitis B shortly after birth.
Hepatitis B can be passed from mothers to their newborns. ACIP could
recommend this week that parents delay those immunizations until age 4.
Monarez told Paul, “I was open to the science, I just would not
pre-commit to approving all the ACIP recommendations without the
science.”
Former CDC director disputes Kennedy’s comments on meeting
During Wednesday’s hearing, Monarez disputed that she lied to Kennedy
or told him that she was an untrustworthy person, as Kennedy said
earlier this month.
“I told her that she had to resign because I asked her, ‘Are you a
trustworthy person?’ And she said, ‘no,’ ” Kennedy told the
Senate Finance Committee on September 4.
Monarez told a different version of events on Wednesday, saying Kennedy
had grown “very concerned” that she had spoken to members of
Congress and told her not to do it again.
“He told me he could not trust me because I had shared information
related to our conversation. … I told him, ‘if you cannot trust me,
then you can fire me,’ ” she said.
Monarez and Houry also told senators that they fear for the safety of
CDC staff amid anti-vaccine rhetoric and a recent shooting on the
agency’s campus.
A gunman who and public health officials fired nearly 500 rounds on the
CDC campus on August 8, killing police Officer David Rose. Roughly 180
rounds hit CDC buildings, Houry said.
“Each bullet was meant for a person, and each of my staff were very
traumatized afterward,” Houry said.
Houry told senators that CDC staff have since feared speaking publicly
about their roles, or want their names removed from scientific papers
“because they feel they were personally targeted because of
misinformation.”
Monarez told the committee that she had been subject to personal
threats and expressed alarm about broader divides about the safety of
vaccines.
“I am very concerned that the further promulgation of misleading
information will undermine not just the safety and health of our
children but will also exacerbate these tensions,” she said.
CNN’s Adam Cancryn contributed to this report.
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