The White House has fired Susan Monarez, the newly appointed head of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) after she refused to resign during a standoff with Health Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., over sweeping changes to United States vaccine policy.
Monarez, a longtime health scientist and civil servant, had been in the post for less than a month before the announcement of her removal was made public late Wednesday.
The White House confirmed the dismissal in a statement, saying Monarez’s stance was incompatible with President Donald Trump’s administration’s health agenda.
“As her attorney’s statement makes abundantly clear, Susan Monarez is not aligned with the President’s agenda of Making America Healthy Again,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said.
“Since Susan Monarez refused to resign despite informing HHS leadership of her intent to do so, the White House has terminated Monarez from her position with the CDC.”
But Monarez’s lawyers disputed the move, arguing that the dismissal was not legally valid.
“She was notified tonight by a White House staffer in the personnel office that she was fired,” her lawyers said. “As a presidential appointee, Senate-confirmed officer, only the president himself can fire her. For this reason, we reject the notification Dr. Monarez has received as legally deficient and she remains as CDC Director.”
They further accused Kennedy of “weaponising public health for political gain and putting millions of American lives at risk.”
The Washington Post, which first reported the dismissal, said Kennedy pressured Monarez to quit after she refused to support his controversial vaccination policy reforms.
Monarez’s ouster triggered resignations from at least five other senior CDC officials, according to the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Local 2883, which represents over 2,000 CDC staff.
“Many felt forced to walk away from the jobs they loved because politics left them no choice,” the union said in a statement, adding: “Vaccines save lives.”
Among those who stepped down was Demetre Daskalakis, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.
“Enough is enough. I am unable to serve in an environment that treats CDC as a tool to generate policies and materials that do not reflect scientific reality and are designed to hurt rather than to improve the public’s health,” Daskalakis wrote on X.
The agency’s chief medical officer Debra Houry and Daniel Jernigan, head of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, also resigned, according to internal memos sighted by US media.
Since taking office, Kennedy, an outspoken vaccine skeptic, has undertaken a drastic overhaul of US vaccine policy. His measures include dismissing prominent immunization experts, restricting access to COVID-19 vaccines, and slashing funding for new vaccine development.
These policies run counter to established scientific consensus and have been heavily criticised by health experts and former CDC officials.
Monarez, who was sworn in by Kennedy on July 31 after Senate confirmation, became the latest casualty of what insiders described as a growing crisis at the Atlanta-based agency. Earlier this month, the CDC was also targeted in an armed attack by a man who reportedly blamed the COVID-19 vaccine for an illness.
In response, hundreds of current and former CDC staff signed an open letter condemning Kennedy’s actions, accusing him of spreading misinformation and endangering public health.
