The Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s newly confirmed director, Susan Monarez, is leaving the job after less than a month officially holding it, and a wave of senior CDC leadership resignations are following.
Monarez’s departure was first reported by The Washington Post and then confirmed by the Department of Health and Human Services in a post on the social media platform X.
She has apparently hired high-profile lawyers Mark Zaid and Abbe Lowell, who said in a post on X that she has not been formally fired and that she refuses to resign.
Swiftly after news broke of Monarez’s departure, other leaders emailed employees to say they were resigning. Leaders communicating their resignations included Dr. Debra Houry, chief medical officer and deputy director for program and science; Dr. Daniel Jernigan, director of the CDC’s National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases; and Demetre Daskalakis, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, which does work on vaccinations.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution obtained images of those emails.
Additionally, the news organizations Politico and STAT reported that Jennifer Leyden, director of the Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance and Technology, resigned earlier in the day.
The HHS post said Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. “has full confidence in his team at CDC who will continue to be vigilant in protecting Americans against infectious diseases at home and abroad.” His spokesman did not respond to an email from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution asking about the other resignations.
Monarez’s lawyers blasted the decision, saying she had been targeted because she “refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts she chose protecting the public over serving a political agenda.”
The news of Monarez’s departure was a shock to the community of former and current CDC employees.
Sarah Boim, a former employee in communications who was fired this year in the first layoffs led by Elon Musk at President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, said the early reports flashed through the CDC workers network.
Boim said the reaction among her and her colleagues went from dismay at Monarez’s news to frightened.
“We’re feeling very scared,” she said. “For the American people, for the future of science. It’s extremely disturbing how CDC is crumbling with all of our people with important institutional knowledge leaving. We’re all feeling very nervous.
“These people are dedicated public health servants,” Boim added. “If they’re being placed in a position where they feel they have to leave due to these policies that people with no credentials are enforcing, it’s a really scary situation, period.”
Monarez had many detractors among agency employees for not doing enough, Boim said. But they also appreciated that she showed respect for her fellow CDC workers, and empathy after the Aug. 8 shooting.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Boim also said she appreciated that Monarez brought in local TV crews to tour the bullet-riddled buildings.
The resignations come as tensions have been building over Kennedy’s changes underway in the Trump administration’s vaccine regulation.
Kennedy recently fired the entire membership of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. It’s a group of outside experts who make recommendations on vaccines. Other changes are underway to further restrict access to the COVID-19 vaccine boosters.
Changes to the advisory committee have raised alarms among health experts who fear the new members will make decisions that don’t help Americans’ health.
There are other concerns, as well.
Kennedy has replaced some of the members with people whose judgment he trusts. One of them posted a meme of a machine gun less than 48 hours after the recent shooting at the CDC, and a meme with the words “if you need a disarmed society to govern, you suck at governing.”
Kennedy has said he is making decisions for the benefit of the public, and the public appreciates them.
“For the first time in its 70-year history, the mission of HHS is truly resonating with the American people — driven by President Trump and Secretary Kennedy’s bold commitment to Make America Healthy Again,” his office said in a statement to the AJC this week.
In a post about his vaccine decisions on X Wednesday, Kennedy said he was abiding by his promises.
“The emergency use authorizations for Covid vaccines, once used to justify broad mandates on the general public during the Biden administration, are now rescinded,” he wrote.
He also said that people who are at higher risk from infection will still have vaccine options.
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