.

Susan Monarez has been pushed out of her position as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) weeks after being confirmed by the Senate, in the latest major shakeup for the beleaguered public health agency.

The first report came from The Washington Post, which quoted multiple officials within the Trump administration. When asked to confirm the story, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) deferred to a post on its official X account. The account said:

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.”

Importantly, the post does not offer any reason for her departure. According to The Washington Post, U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had repeatedly pressured Monarez over her reluctance to authorize COVID-19 vaccines, once asking her to roll back their approvals. Monarez would not accede to the demands without first consulting the CDC’s vaccine advisory committees. In response, Kennedy then told her to resign, accusing her of a lack of support for President Trump’s agenda.

Monarez refused to resign, instead reaching out to Senator Bill Cassidy (R-La. ), who had been instrumental in Kennedy’s own Senate confirmation earlier in the year, having wrung pledges out of him before agreeing to vote in favor. Cassidy objected to Kennedy’s treatment of Monarez, leading to a heated argument between the two officials. Following this, the administration officials told Monarez that she would either have to resign or be fired.

Mark Zaid and Abbe Lowell, lawyers for Monarez, stated social media, saying that Monarez had not resigned and that the White House had not yet given her formal notice of her firing. “Her ouster came after she refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts,” the statement read. “She chose protecting the public over serving a political agenda.” Zaid later told Ars Technica that as of 8:15 p.m. ET on August 27, Monarez still had not been officially terminated.

A Public Health Agency at a Breaking Point

Her confirmation in late July had been viewed as a breakthrough. Approved in a 51–47 vote along party lines, Monarez became the first CDC director in history to be subject to Senate confirmation, following a 2022 law that made it so. Kennedy himself swore her in on July 31, after which he called her “a public health professional with unimpeachable scientific credentials” and said that he was “confident that Dr. Monarez will restore credibility to the CDC as a trusted voice for science-based, public health solutions.”

Her résumé was long and lauded. Monarez has a PhD in microbiology and immunology and has been the deputy director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) for the Biden administration. In the Trump administration, she had worked for 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 had even briefly led the CDC as acting director earlier this year until Trump nominated her, at which point she stepped down.

Her appointment had been welcomed by public health experts. Jennifer Nuzzo of Brown University said she was a “loyal, hardworking civil servant who leads with evidence and pragmatism.” Georges Benjamin, the head of the American Public Health Association, called her a “strong researcher, outstanding manager.”

But turmoil had continued at the agency. The CDC has been losing hundreds of employees through buyouts and layoffs, while many of its programs have been cut or otherwise stymied. Kennedy himself has not helped matters, spouting anti-vaccine talking points such as calling COVID-19 vaccines “the deadliest vaccine ever made” and denouncing the CDC as “a cesspool of corruption.”

The agency was then struck by tragedy on August 8, when a gunman radicalized by vaccine misinformation went on a shooting rampage on the CDC campus. The gunman had blamed vaccines for his own ailments and was specifically targeting the CDC. Overall, nearly 500 rounds were fired, with around 200 hitting six CDC buildings. A local police officer patrolling the CDC campus was killed. Staff cowered in fear, with many fleeing the campus as they could.

Stat News later confirmed three high-ranking officials resigned in the fallout, including Daniel Jernigan, the director of the National Center for Emerging Zoonotic Infectious Diseases; the CDC’s Chief Medical Officer Deb Houry; and Demetre Daskalakis, who was in charge of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

Daskalakis’ departure message read in part, “I am not able to serve in this role any longer because of the ongoing weaponization of public health.” Houry’s own goodbye message also made it clear she was leaving due to the politicization of science, writing that science “should never be censored or subject to political interpretations.”

In a separate report that morning, Politico revealed that Jennifer Layden, the head of the Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance, and Technology, also resigned.

For many at the CDC and in public health at large, the state of the agency is a far cry from what it once was. For years, it has been the bastion of evidence-based medicine, winning acclaim for both researchers and those who administer public health programs. But resignations are now piling up, political interference is rife, and a crisis of confidence has set in at a time when public health needs are only growing.