The Trump administration confirmed Wednesday it had fired the head of the top US public health agency after she refused to step down during a standoff with vaccine skeptic Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The escalating dispute over Kennedy’s sweeping overhaul of US vaccine policy also led to five other senior officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announcing their resignations, according to a union representing some of the agency’s workers.
Susan Monarez, a health scientist and longtime civil servant, had been the CDC’s head for less than a month when Kennedy’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced on X that she “is no longer director.”
But Monarez’s lawyers said she would not step down because she had neither resigned nor received notification from the White House regarding her dismissal.
The White House later confirmed that Monarez had been fired.
“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 in an emailed statement to AFP.
“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,” he added.
However, her lawyers said she “was notified tonight by a White House staffer in the personnel office that she was fired.”
“As a presidential appointee, senate confirmed officer, only the president himself can fire her,” the lawyers said in a statement sent to AFP.
“For this reason, we reject the notification Dr. Monarez has received as legally deficient and she remains as CDC Director.
In an earlier statement, the lawyers accused Kennedy of “weaponizing public health for political gain and putting millions of American lives at risk.”
The Washington Post, which first reported Monarez’s dismissal, said Kennedy pressured her to resign after she refused to commit to supporting his vaccination policy changes.
