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| CDC director Susan Monarez ousted after less than one month in the job | CDC director Susan Monarez ousted after less than one month in the job |
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| Shortly after nation’s top public health agency announced Monarez’s departure, three senior CDC officials resigned | |
| Top CDC officials resign as director pushed – US politics live | Top CDC officials resign as director pushed – US politics live |
| US officials announced the departure of the director of the nation’s top public health agency, after less than one month in the job, in a move that prompted a wave of other high-profile resignations at the agency on Wednesday. | |
| “Susan Monarez is no longer director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We thank her for her dedicated service to the American people,” the US Department of Health and Human Services wrote in a statement posted on social media. | “Susan Monarez is no longer director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We thank her for her dedicated service to the American people,” the US Department of Health and Human Services wrote in a statement posted on social media. |
| HHS officials did not explain why Monarez is no longer with the agency. | HHS officials did not explain why Monarez is no longer with the agency. |
| The Washington Post first reported she was ousted, citing unnamed sources within the Trump administration. | The Washington Post first reported she was ousted, citing unnamed sources within the Trump administration. |
| Reporting from the Post and the New York Times indicate that Monarez ran afoul of Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US health secretary, after she declined to commit to fully support changing the coronavirus vaccine policy. | |
| The abrupt departure of Monarez was followed by the resignation of several other senior CDC officials. Shortly after HHS announced on social media that Monarez “is no longer director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention”, at least three CDC leaders resigned. | |
| “I am not able to serve in this role any longer because of the ongoing weaponization of public health,” Dr Demetre Daskalakis, who resigned from his position as the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told colleagues in an email obtained by Stat, a health news site. | |
| Those concerns were echoed by another departing CDC leader, Dr Deb Houry, the chief medical officer, who wrote that “ongoing changes prevent me from continuing in my job as a leader of the agency”, adding that science should “never be censored or subject to political interpretations”. | |
| The two CDC leaders, and their colleague Daniel Jernigan, who ran the Center for Emerging Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, quit the agency after the abrupt departure of Susan Monarez, the Senate-confirmed director of the CDC. | |
| 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. | 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 31 July – less than a month ago – making her the shortest-serving CDC director in the history of the 79-year-old agency. | She was sworn in on 31 July – less than a month ago – making her the shortest-serving CDC director in the history of the 79-year-old agency. |