GOP Sen. Susan Collins (Maine) on Thursday said she was “alarmed” by the firing of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Susan Monarez as ordered by the Trump administration.
Monarez was originally asked to resign but ultimately chose to hold firm to the post until the White House informed her of the removal.
Various senior agency officials have decried her ouster, and four of them followed her by resigning.
“I am extremely alarmed at the firing of the CDC director,” Collins told reporters following an appearance with the Maine Sheriffs Association, according to Spectrum News.
“I know her. I have met with her several times and talked with her on the phone, and I see no basis for her firing.”
Her comments come as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) called for a bipartisan investigation into the removal of the CDC head.
Former Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra on Wednesday said the departures will increase the death tolls from infectious disease.
“I worked alongside the three leading scientists at the CDC who resigned tonight,” wrote Becerra, who served in the Biden administration, in a statement on the social platform X.
“They were essential public health leaders who helped our country get out of the pandemic,” he continued. “Politicians don’t do science well. It is dangerous to put politics over public health. People will die.”
Monarez’s attorneys Abbe Lowell and Mark Zaid released a defiant statement following her termination.
“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,” their Wednesday statement said.
It added that the ousted director is “a person of integrity and devoted to science.”
Despite criticism, current HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who’s previously spoken out against vaccines, said firings will continue to mold the agency under President Trump’s agenda.
“It’s going to require getting rid of some people over the long term in order for us to change the institutional culture,” Kennedy said on Thursday, Spectrum News reported.
The Hill has reached out to Collins’s office for additional comment.
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