https://apnews.com/article/cdc-director-susan-monarez-50dfbec849b53b4593755d2e6e616687The director of the nation’s top public health agency has been fired after less than one month in the job, and several top agency leaders have resigned.Susan Monarez isn’t “aligned with” President Donald Trump’s agenda and refused to resign, so the White House terminated her, spokesman Kush Desai said Wednesday night. Her lawyers said she was targeted for standing up for science.The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services had announced her departure in a brief social media post late Wednesday afternoon. Her lawyers responded with a statement saying Monarez had neither resigned nor been told she was fired.“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,” attorneys Mark Zaid and Abbe David Lowell wrote in a statement.“This is not about one official. It is about the systematic dismantling of public health institutions, the silencing of experts, and the dangerous politicization of science. The attack on Dr. Monarez is a warning to every American: our evidence-based systems are being undermined from within,” they said.Her departure coincided with the resignations this week of at least four top CDC officials. The list includes Dr. Debra Houry, the agency’s deputy director; Dr. Daniel Jernigan, head of the agency’s National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases; Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, head of its National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases; and Dr. Jennifer Layden, director of the Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance, and Technology.In an email seen by The Associated Press, Houry lamented the crippling effects on the agency from planned budget cuts, reorganization and firings.
>>1430291“I am committed to protecting the public’s health, but the ongoing changes prevent me from continuing in my job as a leader of the agency,” she wrote.She also noted the rise of misinformation about vaccines during the current Trump administration, and alluded to new limits on CDC communications. “For the good of the nation and the world, the science at CDC should never be censored or subject to political pauses or interpretations,” she wrote.Daskalakis worked closely with the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. Kennedy remade the committee by firing everyone and replacing them with a group that included several vaccine skeptics — one of whom was put in charge of a COVID-19 vaccines workgroup.In his resignation letter, Daskalakis lamented that the changes put “people of dubious intent and more dubious scientific rigor in charge of recommending vaccine policy.” He described Monarez as “hamstrung and sidelined by an authoritarian leader.” He added: “Their desire to please a political base will result in death and disability of vulnerable children and adults.”He also wrote: “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.”HHS officials did not immediately respond to questions about the resignations.Some public health experts decried the loss of so many of CDC’s scientific leaders.“The CDC is being decapitated. This is an absolute disaster for public health,” said Public Citizen’s Dr. Robert Steinbrook.Michael Osterholm, a University of Minnesota infectious disease researcher, said the departures were “a serious loss for America.”
>>1430295“The loss of experienced, world-class infectious disease experts at CDC is directly related to the failed leadership of extremists currently in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services,” he said. “They make our country less safe and less prepared for public health emergencies.”Monarez, 50, was the agency’s 21st director and the first to pass through Senate confirmation following a 2023 law. She was named acting director in January and then tapped as the nominee in March after Trump abruptly withdrew his first choice, David Weldon. She was sworn in on July 31 — less than a month ago, making her the shortest-serving CDC director in the history of the 79-year-old agency.Her short time at CDC was tumultuous. On Aug. 8, at the end of her first full week on the job, a Georgia man opened fire from a spot at a pharmacy across the street from CDC’s main entrance. The 30-year-old man blamed the COVID-19 vaccine for making him depressed and suicidal. He killed a police officer and fired more than 180 shots into CDC buildings before killing himself. No one at CDC was injured, but it shell-shocked a staff that already had low morale from other recent changes.Monarez had scheduled an “all hands meeting” meeting for the CDC staff — seen as an important step in addressing concerns among staff since the shooting — for Monday this week. But HHS officials meddled with that, too, canceling it and calling Monarez to Washington, D.C., said a CDC official who was not authorized to talk about it and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.The Atlanta-based federal agency was initially founded to prevent the spread of malaria in the U.S. Its mission was later expanded, and it gradually became a global leader on infectious and chronic diseases and a go-to source of health information.
>>1430296This year it’s been hit by widespread staff cuts, resignations of key officials and heated controversy over long-standing CDC vaccine policies upended by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. During her Senate confirmation process, Monarez told senators that she values vaccines, public health interventions and rigorous scientific evidence. But she largely dodged questions about whether those positions put her at odds with Kennedy, a longtime vaccine skeptic who has criticized and sought to dismantle some of the agency’s previous protocols and decisions.Sen. Patty Murray, a Washington Democrat, praised Monarez for standing up to Kennedy and called for him to be fired.“We cannot let RFK Jr. burn what’s left of the CDC and our other critical health agencies to the ground,” she said in a statement Wednesday night.The Washington Post first reported Monarez was ousted.---END OF STORY---selif nietspe eht esaeler
Why is MAGA so against health? Why would anyone be against that? Do you actually WANT people to be sick and diseased? I don't understand.
>>1430311Making people healthy goes against the corporate agenda financing Trump's entire administration. It's more profitable to let the free market handle it rather than the government.
>>1430311MAGA is inherently anti-intellectual. The whole movement is led by and comprised of deeply stupid people who feel threatened by and distrustful of anybody smarter than them, especially those in positions of authority. Doctors are a frequent target as a result.Look through history, you'll find that just about every authoritarian regime from the nazis to the khmer rouge went after doctors because the actual trained professionals contradicted the schizo-babbles of the leadership.
>>1430311These are the same people bringing back diseases that had been wiped out on this side of the globe just a couple decades ago because they think random "health influencers" are just as qualified as actual medical professionals, if not more so. I look forward to the diphtheria outbreaks of the coming years. It's a fun disease to say out loud.
>>1430311Death cult
>>1430336>MAGA is inherently anti-intellectual.i dwink da cool aids. jfk say cool aids is better den covfee vax. jfk is 72 and hee looks so good and he dwinks lotsa cool aids.
>>1430311Sick people spend more on profitable medical care than healthy ones. Welcome to America.
>>1430336>>1430337Coming from the literal tranny party, the party that wants to mutilate children, the party that said trust the science made up by a trillion dollar pharmaceutical company, the party the decriminalized knowingly giving hiv to another person, the party that spent millions to give drugs to homeless people
>>1430504>if you aren’t a migatard you are a shitlibNo
More retarded nepobaby faggotry. https://www.reuters.com/world/live-updates-cdc-director-monarez-ouster-sparks-concern-resignations-2025-08-28/
>>1430504You can't just say "BUT MY TRANS" to everything. Soon you'll be telling people it's healthy to kill themselves because if they don't they might become a trans
>>1430504>the party that wants to mutilate childrenRepublicans stop obsessing over children's genitals challenge: impossiblePedos, the lot of you
>>1430583Democrats have unironically argued that tranny teachers deserve parental rights over the actual parents of children.Take a beat and imagine the ramifications of what that actually means. They think a public employee, should have greater say in how a child is parented, than the ACTUAL parents themselves.Combine that with the fact that these people are also saying that children can legally consent to irreversible hormone treatments. Sure is weird how monkeypox hit the gay community first, and then suddenly began spreading to kids and dogs. I wonder how that happened.
>>1430336>>1430336Doesn't the United States have a long history of human experimentation by doctors? Tuskegee, forced sterilizations, Holmesburg, that sort of thing? And weren't doctors themselves complicit in the opioid epidemic, conspiring with corporations to push the drugs onto people? And aren't we still dealing with medical racism to this very day? And doesn't medical malpractice affect hundreds of thousands of people every year?Sounds like people may have really good reasons not to trust doctors.
>>1430585>some doctors have done bad things and therefore all doctors everywhere are untrustworthy This is what a stupid person thinks is smart.
>>1430589"Some" seems like an understatement. Most people would agree that the issues with American healthcare are systemic. It's not anti-intellectual to say so.Or do you deny that things like for-profit corruption, medical racism, and systemic discrimination exist?
>>1430593You misunderstand, anon. I’m not here to debate you, I’m just here to call you stupid.>the American medical system is bad therefore you shouldn’t trust doctors or modern medical science at allReally stupid.
>>1430595>I’m just here to call you stupid.You know I kind of appreciate the brute honesty.In return you should know I'm just repeating things black people have told me about why they don't trust doctors. Since this is a leftist board I wanted to see how people would react.
>>1430585There's no such thing as medical racism.
>>1430595i love how much you've internalized my insults shill anon. you've proven how fragile you are and it's cute
>>1430597You’re welcome, dumbass.>>1430601I don’t even know who you are.
>>1430585Da comrade! Jovn Hamburger here from Texas Oblast and I tthink too! Although much demoralized I am think we fellow racist Amerikkkans must giving proud patriot Trump a chance!!!>>1430593Exactly comrade! If only capitalist pig-dogs understood the facts of moral relativism! There is no truth and your opinions are just as valid as objective reality! Keep it up Comrade!!
