US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Susan Monarez has been fired, the White House said on Wednesday, less than a month after being sworn in, and four senior officials have resigned amid growing tensions over vaccine policies and public health directives.
US Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Robert F. Kennedy Jr has made sweeping changes to vaccine policies, including in May withdrawing federal recommendations for COVID-19 shots for pregnant women and healthy children, and firing all members of the CDC’s expert vaccine advisory panel in June, whom he replaced with handpicked advisers, including fellow anti-vaccine advocates.
One of the officials who quit said the CDC’s vaccination recommendations were putting young Americans and pregnant women at risk.
Photo: Reuters
White House spokesman Kush Desai late on Wednesday said Monarez was not “aligned with the president’s agenda of Making America Healthy Again.”
As she had “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,” Desai said.
Monarez’s attorneys, Mark S. Zaid and Abbe David Lowell, denied she had resigned or had been fired, adding in a statement that “as a person of integrity and devoted to science, she will not resign.”
Monarez’s attorneys accused Kennedy of targeting her for refusing to support “unscientific directives” and dismiss health experts.
CDC Chief Medical Officer Debra Houry and US National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases Director Demetre Daskalakis have resigned, Houry said.
They cited a rise in health misinformation especially on vaccines, attacks on science, the weaponization of public health, and attempts to cut the agency’s budget and influence in their resignation letters, reviewed by Reuters.
US National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases Director Daniel Jernigan also stepped down, days after the agency reported the first US human case of screwworm linked to an ongoing outbreak in Central America.
CDC Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance and Technology Director Jen Layden also resigned, NBC News reported.
“Recently, the overstating of risks and the rise of misinformation have cost lives, as demonstrated by the highest number of US measles cases in 30 years and the violent attack on our agency,” Houry wrote in her resignation.
Budget cuts proposed by US President Donald Trump’s administration and plans by Kennedy to reorganize the agency would harm its ability to address these challenges.
The White House sought to cut the CDC’s budget by almost US$3.6 billion, leaving it with a US$4 billion budget for next year, and Kennedy announced a layoff plan earlier this year that cut 2,400 CDC employees, although 700 were rehired.
“I am not able to serve in this role any longer because of the ongoing weaponizing of public health,” Daskalakis wrote.
BRUSHED OFF: An ambassador to Australia previously said that Beijing does not see a reason to apologize for its naval exercises and military maneuvers in international areas China set off alarm bells in New Zealand when it dispatched powerful warships on unprecedented missions in the South Pacific without explanation, military documents showed. Beijing has spent years expanding its reach in the southern Pacific Ocean, courting island nations with new hospitals, freshly paved roads and generous offers of climate aid. However, these diplomatic efforts have increasingly been accompanied by more overt displays of military power. Three Chinese warships sailed the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand in February, the first time such a task group had been sighted in those waters. “We have never seen vessels with this capability
A Japanese city would urge all smartphone users to limit screen time to two hours a day outside work or school under a proposed ordinance that includes no penalties. The limit — which would be recommended for all residents in Toyoake City — would not be binding and there would be no penalties incurred for higher usage, the draft ordinance showed. The proposal aims “to prevent excessive use of devices causing physical and mental health issues... including sleep problems,” Mayor Masafumi Koki said yesterday. The draft urges elementary-school students to avoid smartphones after 9pm, and junior-high students and older are advised not
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr has fired his national police chief, who gained attention for leading the separate arrests of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte on orders of the International Criminal Court and televangelist Apollo Carreon Quiboloy, who is on the FBI’s most-wanted list for alleged child sex trafficking. Philippine Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin did not cite a reason for the removal of General Nicolas Torre as head of the 232,000-member national police force, a position he was appointed to by Marcos in May and which he would have held until 2027. He was replaced by another senior police general, Jose
POWER CONFLICT: The US president threatened to deploy National Guards in Baltimore. US media reports said he is also planning to station troops in Chicago US President Donald Trump on Sunday threatened to deploy National Guard troops to yet another Democratic stronghold, the Maryland city of Baltimore, as he seeks to expand his crackdown on crime and immigration. The Republican’s latest online rant about an “out of control, crime-ridden” city comes as Democratic state leaders — including Maryland Governor Wes Moore — line up to berate Trump on a high-profile political stage. Trump this month deployed the National Guard to the streets of Washington, in a widely criticized show of force the president said amounts to a federal takeover of US capital policing. The Guard began carrying
RSS