- calendar_today August 28, 2025
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Hours after being confirmed by the Senate, Susan Monarez has been forced out as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The removal is the latest in a series of major shakeups that have rattled the beleaguered public health agency.
The Washington Post was first to report the news, speaking to multiple officials within the Trump administration. Ars Technica reached out to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which in turn pointed to its official X post on the matter. The statement read:
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. @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 did not explain why Monarez was ousted from her role. However, The Washington Post also reported that the U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is an outspoken anti-vaccine activist, had been pressuring Monarez for weeks over her decisions to promote COVID-19 vaccines. Kennedy reportedly asked her to rescind the approval of the vaccines, but she refused without first consulting the CDC’s vaccine advisory committees. Kennedy then demanded that she resign, alleging that she was failing to back President Trump’s positions.
Monarez rejected the demand. Instead, she reached out to Senator Bill Cassidy (R-La. ), who had been critical of Kennedy’s Senate confirmation earlier this year, to force Kennedy to withdraw his request. Monarez and Kennedy clashed over the issue, with Cassidy telling Kennedy he was “out of line.” After the call, several other administration officials told Monarez that she had to resign or be fired.
Lawyers Mark Zaid and Abbe Lowell, who represent Monarez, stated on social media that Monarez has not resigned and has yet to receive formal written notification from the White House about her termination. “Her ouster came after she refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts,” the statement said. “She chose protecting the public over serving a political agenda,” Zaid confirmed to Ars Technica that, as of 8:15 p.m. ET on August 27, Monarez had not yet received any official termination notice.
CDC at Breaking Point
Monarez’s confirmation late last month had been hailed as a breakthrough. Confirmed by a narrow 51–47 vote on party lines, she became the first CDC director ever subject to Senate confirmation, a requirement of a 2022 law. Kennedy himself administered her oath on July 31, in a ceremony where he lauded her “unimpeachable scientific credentials” and expressed his confidence that she could help restore the CDC’s reputation.
Monarez has a strong résumé. She earned a PhD in microbiology and immunology and is a former deputy director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), which develops medical breakthroughs for unmet health needs. Under the Biden administration, she had also served in several other government positions, including with the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), the Department of Homeland Security, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and the National Security Council. She was also the CDC’s acting director earlier this year, before stepping down when Trump nominated her to be the permanent leader.
Monarez was welcomed by experts in public health. Jennifer Nuzzo of Brown University described her as “a loyal, hardworking civil servant who leads with evidence and pragmatism,” while Georges Benjamin, head of the American Public Health Association, wrote that “her work as a researcher and administrator has shown her to be a strong, capable manager.”
But her brief time in the post has been fraught, reflecting the tumult at the CDC. The agency has lost hundreds of employees through layoffs and buyouts, while the Kennedy administration has cut or slowed a number of programs. The CDC itself has become a flashpoint, with Kennedy himself calling COVID-19 vaccines “the deadliest vaccine ever made” and calling the CDC “a cesspool of corruption.”
This came on top of a shooting at the CDC on August 8, when a gunman radicalized by vaccine misinformation opened fire on the CDC campus. He fired nearly 500 rounds, with about 200 hitting six different CDC buildings. A local police officer was killed, while other terrified staff members scrambled to protect themselves. The shooter had also blamed vaccines for his own health issues and targeted the CDC in retaliation.
The reported removal of Monarez will only exacerbate that crisis. Stat News confirmed that Daniel Jernigan, director of the National Center for Emerging Zoonotic Infectious Diseases; Deb Houry, the CDC’s Chief Medical Officer; and Demetre Daskalakis, who led the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, also submitted their resignations.
In his resignation letter, Daskalakis wrote, “I am not able to serve in this role any longer because of the ongoing weaponization of public health.” Houry’s message also touched on how politics and science had mixed, with her writing that science “should never be censored or subject to political interpretations.”
Earlier in the day, Politico also reported that Jennifer Layden, the head of the Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance, and Technology, also resigned.
The recent rash of departures from the CDC, both high- and mid-ranking, has many at the agency and in the public health community dismayed at the loss of an organization once seen as the backbone of science-based public health practice.
