University of Kwazulu-Natal

Cdc Director Susan Monarez Was Fired Why Did She Refuse To Resign

Bonisiwe Shabane
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cdc director susan monarez was fired why did she refuse to resign

The White House says CDC Director Susan Monarez was fired because she was not aligned with President Trump's mission to make America healthy again. What does the exodus mean for the agency? And now to a portrait of an agency in apparent freefall. I would tell you who's in charge today at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta if we knew. To recap, Susan Monarez had just been confirmed as director at the end of July. Yesterday on X, the Department of Health and Human Services posted that she is no longer in charge.

Monarez said, not so fast, that she would not resign, that only the president has the power to fire her, which White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt says he has done. And then late this afternoon, we learned that Health and Human Services Deputy Secretary Jim O'Neill will be named interim director of the CDC. That's according to an administration official not authorized to discuss the decision. Well earlier today, I spoke with someone who knows well the challenges of running the CDC - Dr. Tom Frieden. He was director there during the Obama administration.

And I asked him is it clear to him who's in charge? TOM FRIEDEN: No, it is not. This is unprecedented. There has, in the 80-year history of the CDC, never been a director fired and never had a situation like this where you have essentially a purge, where much of the top leadership leaves... The CDC works 24/7 to protect Americans from threats. And when the top leaders who have been there through Democratic and Republican administrations for decades, leave, we are all less safe.

KELLY: You've just pointed out that it is not just Susan Monarez as director who appears to have exited the CDC in the last 24 hours. We know of four other senior leaders who have left, including the CDC's chief medical officer, including the director of the Center on Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. What are you hearing from Atlanta headquarters today? America’s national public health agency is in turmoil, with firings, resignations, and claims and counterclaims about what’s true in science and health. Keeping up with personnel news out of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was difficult Wednesday evening and Thursday: Director Susan Monarez, one month into her job, was reportedly refusing to give it... She was later fired, but refused to step down, and some believe her case may make its way to the Supreme Court.

In the meantime, the Trump administration named Deputy Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Jim O’Neill to the role of acting director of the CDC, officials told The Hill. BBC reported that “Monarez’s departure comes about a week after a union representing CDC employees announced that about 600 CDC employees had been fired.” The article said the layoffs included “employees working on the... Monarez was nominated by President Donald Trump and confirmed by the Senate in July. The Washington Post reported that “her attorneys have challenged the legality of her firing and said she would not resign after she refused to follow ‘unscientific, reckless directives.’ (Health and Human Services Secretary Robert... Kennedy Jr.) and other officials pressured Monarez to change vaccine policy and fire senior staff, people familiar with the conversations previously told The Washington Post." The White House on Wednesday said it had fired Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Susan Monarez after she refused to resign.

Four other top CDC officials announced they were quitting the embattled health agency. The leadership crisis at CDC erupted the same day the Food and Drug Administration announced new limits on who can get the latest approved round of Covid vaccines in the U.S. "Susan Monarez is not aligned with the President's agenda of Making America Healthy Again," White House Spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement to NBC News. "Since Susan Monarez refused to resign despite informing [Health and Human Services Department] leadership of her intent to do so, the White House has terminated Monarez from her position with the CDC." The statement comes hours after attorney Mark Zaid said he was representing Monarez and that she had not actually been fired yet or stepped down, adding that she would not resign. "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," Zaid said in a statement.

"For that, she has been targeted." CDC Director Susan Monarez, PhD, was fired on Wednesday night after a dramatic showdown with the Trump administration. Monarez isn't "aligned with" President Trump's agenda and refused to resign, so the White House terminated her, spokesman Kush Desai said Wednesday night. A CDC source told MedPage Today that Monarez was escorted out of her office today. HHS earlier on Wednesday said in a post on X that Monarez "is no longer director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We thank her for her dedicated service."

But on Wednesday evening, her lawyers Mark Zaid and Abbe David Lowell issued a statement that said she had neither resigned nor been told she was fired. When Susan Monarez took the helm of the beleaguered US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in late July, she had her work cut out for her. Public trust in the agency had dropped considerably since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. And US health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, who oversees the CDC, had called the agency a “cesspool of corruption” that needed to be fundamentally rebuilt. Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals

Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription Receive 51 print issues and online access Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout Lawyers for the fired Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director, Susan Monarez, say she was targeted for standing up for science and are challenging the legality of her termination. (AP Video: Nathan Ellgren) Susan Monarez, President Donald Trump’s nominee to be director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, arrives to testify before the Senate HELP Committee, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, June 25, 2025.

(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, file) NEW YORK (AP) — The director of the nation’s top public health agency has been fired after less than one month in the job, and several top agency leaders have 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 Wednesday night. Her lawyers said she was targeted for standing up for science.

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