The White House said late Wednesday that it had fired Susan Monarez, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), after less than one month in the job.
Monarez, 50, isn’t “aligned with” U.S. President Donald Trump’s agenda of “Making America Healthy Again” and refused to resign, so the White House terminated her position with the CDC, spokesperson Kush Desai said on Wednesday night.
The infectious disease researcher was sworn in on July 31 by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Her lawyers argue that her dismissal was retaliation for standing up for science.
“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,” her lawyers, Mark Zaid and Abbe Lowell, said 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.
“Dr. Monarez has neither resigned nor received notification from the White House that she has been fired, and as a person of integrity and devoted to science, she will not resign.”
Their statement was posted on X in response to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which stated that Monarez “is no longer director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”
“We thank her for her dedicated service to the American people. @SecKennedy has full confidence in his team at @CDCgov who will continue to be vigilant in protecting Americans against infectious diseases at home and abroad,” the post read.
In a followup statement, Zaid said his client was notified “by White House staff in the personnel office that she was fired.”
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“As a presidential appointee, senate confirmed officer, only the president himself can fire her,” Zaid added. “For this reason, we reject notification Dr. Monarez has received as legally deficient and she remains as CDC Director. We have notified the White House Counsel of our position.”
Monarez’s firing makes her the shortest-serving CDC director in the history of the 79-year-old agency.
Her departure comes amid the resignations this week of at least four top CDC officials: 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.
“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.
In another email, viewed by the New York Times, Daskalakis cited an increasingly tense environment within the Trump administration.
“I am not able to serve in this role any longer because of the ongoing weaponization of public health,” Daskalakis wrote in an email to colleagues.
He described Monarez as “hamstrung and sidelined by an authoritarian leader.”
“Their desire to please a political base will result in death and disability of vulnerable children and adults,” he added. “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.”
Kennedy declined to directly comment on the ouster of Monarez and the resignations of several other top agency officials during an appearance Thursday on Fox and Friends. But he signalled that he continues to have concerns about CDC officials being aligned with his and Trump’s outlook on health policy.
“So we need to look at the priorities of the agency, if there’s really a deeply, deeply embedded, I would say, malaise at the agency,” Kennedy said. “And we need strong leadership that will go in there and that will be able to execute on President Trump’s broad ambitions.”
Monarez 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.
On Aug. 8, at the end of her first full week on the job, a Georgia man opened fire from a pharmacy across the street from the 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.
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.
— With files from The Associated Press
