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New CDC director fired after refusing to "rubber stamp" RFK Jr's nonsense; others resign [1]
['Rob Beschizza']
Date: 2025-08-28
Susan Monarez, installed as CDC director just weeks ago by President Trump, was expected to be his rubber stamp at the nation's top disease-control agency. But her refusal to sign off on something resulted in her ouster last night and the immediate resignation of various other top staff there.
"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. For that, she has been targeted," said her lawyers, Mark Zaid and Abbe Lowell.
At least three CDC senior officials resigned after Monarez was ousted. One squarely blamed Robert F Kennedy Jr's leadership. "I am not able to serve in this role any longer because of the ongoing weaponization of public health," Dr Demetre Daskalakis, who resigned as director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases told colleagues.
The CDC is overseen by Health Secretary Kennedy, often seen touting medical conspiracy theories and dismissing scientific consensus on a range of topics. He will soon announce ex cathedra what causes autism and is expected to identify vaccines or other drugs whose alleged links to the condition have been repeatedly dismissed by large-scale studies. A publication enshrining Kennedy's beliefs is, media speculate, what Monarez and her colleagues have refused to put their names to.
Monarez's departure was announced anonymously by the administration yesterday without notifying her; her lawyers forced it to put Trump's name to the firing this morning: "As a presidential appointee, senate confirmed officer, only the president himself can fire her," Monarez's lawyer Mark Zaid posted on BlueSky.
Meanwhile, the CDC has "dramatically scaled back" a program tracking food poisoning.
Previously, the FoodNet system required surveillance of infections confirmed to be caused by six other germs as well: campylobacter, cyclospora, listeria, shigella, vibrio and Yersinia. That is now optional.
The list of things Kennedy likes includes, of course, raw milk and meat.
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