On Wednesday (Aug. 27), the White Home introduced that Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention (CDC) Director Susan Monarez had been fired, a little bit over a month after being confirmed to the place by the Senate. The Division of Well being and Human Providers launched a press release initially. The choice is reportedly attributable to Monarez being at odds with Well being and Human Providers Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and “not being aligned with the president’s agenda” concerning vaccines.
Attorneys for Monarez issued a press release explaining that she is refusing to go away her submit, stating that solely President Donald Trump has the authority to make such a transfer. “Because of this, we reject the notification Dr. Monarez has obtained as legally poor and he or she stays as CDC Director. We have now notified the White Home Counsel of our place,” Monarez’s attorneys, Mark Zaid and Abbe Lowell mentioned.
Shortly afterward, 4 senior officers on the CDC – Debra Houry, the chief medical officer; vaccine security chief Daniel Jernigan, ; Jennifer Layden, head of the workplace for public well being knowledge; and Demetre Daskalakis, who headed the workplace answerable for issuing vaccine suggestions. Monarez and others on the CDC had been against Kennedy’s selections “weaponizing public well being for political achieve and placing hundreds of thousands of Individuals in danger,” with Kennedy reportedly pushing her to again adjustments to the CDC’s vaccine coverage or threat being fired.
“I’m unable to serve in an atmosphere that treats CDC as a software to generate insurance policies and supplies that don’t mirror scientific actuality and are designed to harm relatively than to enhance the general public’s well being,” Daskalakis mentioned in a press release after his resignation, including it was “untenable to serve in a company that’s not afforded the chance to debate selections of scientific and public well being significance launched beneath the moniker of CDC.”
The announcement got here on the day that main restrictions on eligibility for the COVID-19 vaccine had been introduced by Kennedy, who’s a infamous anti-vaxxer. One other bone of rivalry between Monarez and Kennedy was over the administration’s response to a gunman attacking the CDC’s headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, in July, killing an officer.
