- calendar_today August 28, 2025
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A week after being confirmed by the Senate, Susan Monarez has been ousted as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the latest high-level shakeup for the beleaguered public health agency.
The Washington Post was first to report her removal, citing several officials within the Trump administration. When contacted by Ars Technica, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) deferred to its own post on X (formerly Twitter). In the post, HHS confirmed Monarez’s departure with the following statement:
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.”
Curiously, the post did not elaborate on the reasons for the leadership change. As reported by The Washington Post, Monarez was the target of repeated pressure from the U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a well-known anti-vaccine advocate, spoke about her support for COVID-19 vaccines. Kennedy demanded she rescind the approval of the vaccines, but Monarez declined to do so without consulting the CDC’s vaccine advisory committees. He then reportedly asked her to resign, telling her she had failed to advance President Trump’s agenda.
Monarez refused, leading her to contact Senator Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who had been central in Kennedy’s Senate confirmation earlier this year after he had extracted certain assurances from Kennedy. Cassidy resisted Kennedy’s demands, leading to a heated back-and-forth. Administration officials later told Monarez that she must resign or be fired.
Monarez’s lawyers, Mark Zaid and Abbe Lowell, issued a statement on social media saying that Monarez has not resigned, nor has she received an official notification of her firing from the White House. “Her ouster came after she refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts,” the statement added. “She chose protecting the public over serving a political agenda.” Zaid later confirmed to Ars Technica that, as of 8:15 p.m. ET on August 27, Monarez had not received official notification of her termination.
CDC at Breaking Point
Monarez’s Senate confirmation back in late July was seen as a major victory at the time. She had been approved 51–47 along party lines, the first CDC director to ever be subject to Senate confirmation after a 2022 law that mandated it. Kennedy himself administered her oath on July 31, noting her “unimpeachable scientific credentials” and expressing confidence that she would help restore trust in the CDC.
Her resume was lengthy and impressive. Monarez has a PhD in microbiology and immunology. She previously served as deputy director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) under the Biden administration. Before that, she worked at 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 also served briefly as acting CDC director earlier this year before resigning in anticipation of Trump’s nomination of her for the position.
The appointment of Monarez had been praised by public health experts. Jennifer Nuzzo of Brown University called her “a loyal, hardworking civil servant who leads with evidence and pragmatism,” while Georges Benjamin, director of the American Public Health Association, called her a “strong researcher” with management experience.
Her tenure was cut short in an agency in freefall. The CDC has lost hundreds of staff in layoffs and buyouts, while many programs have been eliminated or curtailed. Kennedy himself has added to the discord by calling COVID-19 vaccines “the deadliest vaccine ever made” and denouncing the CDC as a “cesspool of corruption.”
The crisis for the agency came to a head on August 8 when a gunman radicalized by vaccine misinformation shot his way onto the CDC campus. He fired almost 500 rounds, with some 200 rounds hitting six different CDC buildings. A local police officer was killed, and other CDC staff hid for their lives. The shooter had blamed vaccines for his own health conditions and specifically targeted the CDC.
Her reported firing has added to a wave of resignations at the CDC in recent days. Stat News confirmed the resignations of three senior officials: Daniel Jernigan, director of the National Center for Emerging Zoonotic Infectious Diseases; Deb Houry, CDC’s Chief Medical Officer; and Demetre Daskalakis, who had led the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.
In his departure note, Daskalakis wrote, “I am not able to serve in this role any longer because of the ongoing weaponization of public health.” Houry’s exit note read, in part, that science should “never be censored or subject to political interpretations.”
The day before, Politico reported that Jennifer Layden, head of the Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance, and Technology, had also resigned.
For some within and outside the CDC, the events have marked a nadir for an agency that was once held as the gold standard of evidence-based public health. Now, itsit’sunting resignations, political interference, and crises of confidence come at a time when public health threats are mounting.
