WHEN MEDICINE AND SCIENCE GIVE WAY TO CRACKPOT IDEOLOGY

In this photo provided by the Department of Health and the ex inHuman Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., right, conducts the swearing-in ceremony of Jim O'Neill as the Department's Deputy Secretary earlier this year. He is a longtime critic of health regulations and is now in charge of the Center for Disease and Control and Prevention.

Special to El Rrun-Rrun

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had an ultimatum for the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Fire career agency officials and commit to backing his adviser on vaccines – or risk being fired herself, according to people familiar with the events.

She refused.  

The director, Susan Monarez, declined to fire agency leaders or to accept all recommendations from a vaccine advisory panel made over by Mr. Kennedy, according to people with knowledge of the events.

In an email seen by The Associated Press, Houry lamented the crippling effects on the agency from planned budget cuts, reorganization and firings.

“I am committed to protecting the public’s health, but the ongoing changes prevent me from continuing in my job as a leader of the agency,” she wrote.

She was fired after less than one month in the job, and several top agency leaders have also resigned.

Susan Monarez isn’t “aligned with” President Donald Trump’s agenda and refused to resign, so the White House terminated her, spokesman Kush Desai said last week 

Her lawyers said she was targeted for standing up for science. 

President Donald Trump has picked Jim O’Neill, a former investor and critic of health regulations serving under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to take control of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, following a tumultuous week in which Monarez, the agency’s director, was forced out.
The new head of the CDC has no training in medicine and once helped to develop man-made islands floating outside U.S. territory

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services had announced her departure in a brief social media post late this week. Her lawyers responded with a statement saying Monarez had neither resigned or had been told she was fired.

“When CDC Director Susan Monarez refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts, she chose protecting the public over serving a political agenda. For that, she has been targeted,” attorneys Mark Zaid and Abbe David Lowell wrote in a statement.

“This is not about one official. It is about the systematic dismantling of public health institutions, the silencing of experts, and the dangerous politicization of science. The attack on Dr. Monarez is a warning to every American: our evidence-based systems are being undermined from within,” they said.

Her departure coincided with the resignations this week of at least four top CDC officials. 

The list includes Dr. Debra Houry, the agency’s deputy director; Dr. Daniel Jernigan, head of the agency’s National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases; Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, head of its National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases; and Dr. Jennifer Layden, director of the Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance, and Technology.

She also noted the rise of misinformation about vaccines during the current Trump administration, and alluded to new limits on CDC communications.

“For the good of the nation and the world, the science at CDC should never be censored or subject to political pauses or interpretations,” she wrote.

Daskalakis worked closely with the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. Kennedy remade the committee by firing everyone and replacing them with a group that included several vaccine skeptics – one of whom was put in charge of a COVID-19 vaccines workgroup.

In his resignation letter, Daskalakis lamented that the changes put “people of dubious intent and more dubious scientific rigor in charge of recommending vaccine policy.” He described Monarez as “hamstrung and sidelined by an authoritarian leader.” He added: “Their desire to please a political base will result in death and disability of vulnerable children and adults.”

He also wrote: “I am unable to serve in an environment that treats CDC as a tool to generate policies and materials that do not reflect scientific reality.”

In an email seen by The Associated Press, Houry lamented the crippling effects on the agency from planned budget cuts, reorganization and firings.

“I am committed to protecting the public’s health, but the ongoing changes prevent me from continuing in my job as a leader of the agency,” she wrote.