The Department of Health and Human Services announced on X Wednesday that Susan Monarez, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is “no longer director” after just one month in the role.
However, counsel for Monarez released a statement disputing HHS’ statement, saying she has not resigned or been notified by the White House that she is 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,” lawyers Mark S. Zaid and Abbe David Lowell wrote in a statement. “For that, she has been targeted. … as a person of integrity and devoted to science, she will not resign.”
Monarez had received a call Wednesday afternoon from a White House official who advised her to resign by the end of the day or be fired by President Donald Trump, an HHS official granted anonymity to discuss the situation said.
An HHS spokesperson directed POLITICO to the X post from the agency, which also said: “We thank her for her dedicated service to the American people.”
Three top CDC leaders resigned minutes after Monarez’s news broke, including Chief Medical Officer Debra Houry, National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases Demetre Daskalakis and National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases Director Daniel Jernigan, said four people familiar with the departures granted anonymity to discuss the developments.
Monarez was called into a meeting in Washington with Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and HHS Principal Deputy Chief of Staff Stefanie Spear on Monday, when the two pressured her to resign, the HHS official said. Monarez declined. She was also directed to fire several senior CDC staff by the end of the week, the official said.
It was unclear Wednesday why HHS was seeking the ouster of Monarez and her staff.
Monarez was confirmed as CDC director roughly a month ago by the Senate. She won support from several public health experts who have denounced Kennedy and said they hoped she would serve as a bulwark against his plans to upend the agency.
“This is another example of the chaotic leadership under Secretary Kennedy,” former CDC principal deputy director Nirav Shah said. “In a time of rising threats to public health, what CDC needs is stable leadership and this type of instability will not make America healthy again.”
Monarez has spent much of her time as CDC director dealing with a fatal shooting targeting agency headquarters, which killed a law enforcement officer. Earlier this month, a gunman shot 200 rounds of bullets into six buildings on the agency’s Atlanta campus. Authorities have said the gunman — who left documents showing a distrust in the Covid-19 vaccine — killed a police officer and died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
In March, Kennedy gave a full-throated endorsement of Monarez after President Donald Trump’s first nominee to lead CDC, Dave Weldon, was dropped from consideration.
“I handpicked Susan for this job because she is a longtime champion of MAHA values, and a caring, compassionate and brilliant microbiologist and a tech wizard who will reorient CDC toward public health and gold-standard science,” Kennedy posted on X in March.
She has an extensive background working on public health related topics in the federal government, serving as deputy director for the federal research funding agency Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash) commended Monarez for not resigning, and urged Republican lawmakers to call for Kennedy to be removed from his role atop HHS.
"If there are any adults left in the White House, it's well past time they face reality and fire RFK Jr. He is a dangerous man who is determined to abuse his authority to act on truly terrifying conspiracy theories and disinformation — leaving us unprepared for the next deadly pandemic and snuffing out potential cures while he's at it," Murray said in a statement.
The move follows other actions by Kennedy that have disrupted CDC, including sending termination notices to thousands of staff. He also fired the entire membership of the outside committee that advises the agency on changes to the adult and childhood vaccine schedules, and appointed members more in line with his own, skeptical view of the shots.
It also comes amid a handful of other oustings within the top ranks of HHS since the start of the Trump administration — several of which were tied to Spear, POLITICO and other outlets have reported.
"For the good of the nation and the world, the science at CDC should never be censored or subject to political pauses or interpretations," Houry wrote in her resignation email. "Vaccines save lives-this is an indisputable, well- established, scientific fact. Informed consent and shared decision-making must focus not only on the risks but also on the true, life-saving benefits that vaccines provide to individuals and communities. ... Recently, the overstating of risks and the rise of misinformation have cost lives, as demonstrated by the highest number of U.S. measles cases in 30 years and the violent attack on our agency."
On Wednesday, the FDA moved to revoke emergency use authorization for Covid-19 vaccines, approving new versions of the shots for adults over age 65 and younger individuals at high risk for severe disease from the virus. Healthy younger people will likely have more difficulty accessing the vaccines.
The CDC director typically signs off on recommendations on vaccine use made by the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices — but no meeting to discuss the new Covid-19 vaccines has been formally scheduled.
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