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RFK Jr.'s Awful Firing of CDC Head Dr. Susan Monarez [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-09-02

MASA, “MAKE AMERICA SICK AGAIN”– Trump Wacko Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Fires Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Head Dr. Susan Monarez September 2, 2025

Any reasonable person should know by now that Demagogue/Dictator Wannabe Donald’s slogans constitute utter bald-faced lies. MAGA does not mean “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.” It, frankly, means “MAKE AMERICA (Fall Into ) The GUTTER AGAIN.” And under one of Trump’s worst wacko Cabinet picks, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., his head of HHS, Health and Human Services, we have a Secretary who can proudly wear a Trumpian Red hat on his head with the acronym MASA or “MAKE AMERICA SICK AGAIN.” That’s right, bring back devastating and sometimes fatal epidemics of measles, polio, and other horrible maladies. Under Kennedy’s watch, there has been a measles outbreak in the Southwest and children have died. Kennedy, of course, is an anti-vaxxer or anti-vaccination fanatic. His policies would make us go back to the “Good old Days” (NOT) when people also died of smallpox. The survivors of this awful disease bore scars from their ordeal. Just look at the accounts in our colonial history of how ravaging this illness was, one that George Washington himself had. https://mtvernon.orglibrary

HHS will probably be cutting research into heart disease and cancer as well. But so what? According to retiring Iowa GOP Senator Joni Ernst, “We’re all going to die.” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/gop-sen-ernst-of-iowa-will-not-seek-reelection-in-2026-reports_n_68b1dce0e4b072bf6d64797d

Therefore, it was, apparently, no problem for Health and Human Services Secretary Kennedy to have Dr. Susan Monarez fired on August 27, 2025 from her position as director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) which is a part of HHS. Donald had just appointed her on March 24, 2025 as permanent director after he withdrew his previous nomination of Dave Weldon from that position. Prior to her permanent appointment as director of the CDC, Dr. Monarez had become Principal Deputy Director and Acting Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on January 23, 2025. On July 29, 2025, the U.S. Senate confirmed her by a 51-47 party-line vote. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Monarez (Apparently, even people dealing with our nation’s health have now become part of the partisan warfare engulfing our nation). Dr. Monarez has a Ph.D. rather than an M.D. degree and is the first director without a medical degree in this post since 1953. She was the first appointee to this position that required Senate confirmation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Monarez As CDC Director, Dr. Monarez had responsibility for overseeing responses to public health emergencies and emerging diseases. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Monarez

So why was Dr. Monarez so quickly fired after barely being in this crucial HHS job as head CDC director for less than a month? Her lawyers stated she was targeted after she refused to “rubber stamp unscientific reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts.” After Dr. Monarez was ousted, at least four other CDC officials left the agency. These included Debra Houry, Chief Medical Officer, Demetre Daskalakis, Director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, Daniel Jernigan,Director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, and Jennifer Layden, Director of the Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance, and Technology, which contains the National Center for Health Statistics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Monarezhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Susan_Monarez ,

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ex-cdc-leaders-rip-rfk-jr_n_68b5a89ae4b0bdebd5aa86be

And Dr. Susan Patricia Coller Monarez, unlike many of Donald’s appointees, including RFK Jr., is far from an unqualified, controversial, or inept appointee. She grew up in rural Wisconsin. Dr. Monarez’s father was a dairy farmer who had to sell his farm after a disease outbreak hit his herd and later became a police officer. Her mother worked in various factory and clerical jobs and as a librarian. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Monarez Monarez received her B.S. in microbiology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a 2003 Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology at that same top flight university. Her research focused on developing technologies to prevent, diagnose, and treat infectious diseases, especially those affecting low-and middle-income countries. From 2003-2006, she did postdoctoral research at Stanford University Medical School where she continued her work in the field of infectious disease research, focusing on effective remedies for African sleeping sickness and toxoplasmosis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Monarez

From 2006-2009, Dr. Monarez worked as a science and policy advisor at Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), and from 2009-2013, she worked at the Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency (HSARPA). She was the Director of Medical Preparedness Policy on the National Security Council from 2014-2016 where she worked on combating antimicrobial resistance and improving pandemic preparedness. From 2016-2018, Dr. Monarez led international cooperative initiatives to foster bilateral and multilateral collaboration in health research and innovation. In January 2023, Dr. Monarez was appointed to lead projects that focused on applying artificial intelligence to improve health outcomes and combat the U.S. opioid epidemic. She also worked on improving organ donation and transplant systems. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Monarez Very few employees in the health field have such an excellent background and stellar record. For RFK Jr. to fire her is a horrible mistake and will hurt scientific and health advances in this country.

Dr. Monarez’s firing made headlines and has shaken the scientific and health world. A New York Times opinion piece authored by former leaders of the CDC who served under both Democratic and Republican presidents, heavily blasted RFK Jr. for his firing of Dr. Monarez. They stated that Americans deserve a health secretary who “supports science and has their back.” The piece’s title aptly read, “We Ran The C.D.C.: Kennedy Is Endangering Every American’s Health.” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ex-cdc-leaders-rip-rfk-jr_n_68b5a89ae4b0bdebd5aa86be

They correctly noted what Kennedy “has done to the C.D.C. and to our nation’s public health system over the past several months –culminating in his decision to fire Dr. Susan Monarez as C.D.C. director days ago–is unlike anything we have ever seen at the agency and unlike anything our country has ever experienced.” These authors were HHS heavyweights, William Foege, William Roper, David Satcher, Jeffrey Koplan, Richard Besser, Tom Frieden, Anne Schuchat, Rochelle Walensky, and Mandy Cohen. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ex-cdc-leaders-rip-rfk-jr_n_68b5a89ae4b0bdebd5aa86be They aptly argued in this opinion piece that Kennedy’s decision to fire Monarez on top of his call to terminate thousands of federal workers from his department and downplay the role of vaccines in fighting the current measles outbreak will have a “detrimental impact on the country’s health security.” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ex-cdc-leaders-rip-rfk-jr_n_68b5a89ae4b0bdebd5aa86be

They stated that rural residents, people with disabilities, families with low incomes, and children needing lifesaving vaccines will be hard hit by Kennedy’s actions. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ex-cdc-leaders-rip-rfk-jr_n_68b5a89ae4b0bdebd5aa86be They tellingly added that “this is unacceptable, and it should alarm every American, regardless of political leanings.” https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ex-cdc-leaders-rip-rfk-jr_n_68b5a89ae4b0bdebd5aa86be It certainly should.

With Dr. Monarez’s firing, HHS under Kennedy has continued to spiral into further turmoil. We must push for getting Dr. Monarez back at the CDC and we must also demand that RFK Jr. be forced to resign. I doubt that Demagogue/Dictator Wannabe Donald will listen to us. However, we must make sure that the majority of Americans hear about how Trump and Kennedy are destroying HHS and make sure that we do our best to take back the House and the Senate in Campaign 2026. Finally, we must vote this whole Trump crew and their GOP foot soldiers out of office in 2028 and start repairing the damage done to HHS as well as to our entire democracy.

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