Susan Monarez, the ousted former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, plans to warn a Senate committee Wednesday that if a vaccine panel proceeds with a meeting scheduled for this week, there’s a “real risk” vaccines for children could be limited, according to testimony obtained by CBS News.
She also plans to tell lawmakers her side of the story about a contentious meeting with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that preceded her removal as director, after Kennedy testified to the same Senate panel earlier this month that she said she wasn’t “trustworthy.”
Monarez, who was ousted from her job less than a month after her Senate confirmation, plans to say that she believes she was fired because she would not agree to pre-approve the recommendations from a newly reconstituted vaccine advisory panel known as the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP. She also plans to say she refused to fire career scientists at the agency.
“Secretary Kennedy demanded two things of me that were inconsistent with my oath of office and the ethics required of a public official,” Monarez plans to say. “He directed me to commit in advance to approving every ACIP recommendation regardless of the scientific evidence. He also directed me to dismiss career officials responsible for vaccine policy, without cause. He said if I was unwilling to do both, I should resign.”
Monarez will testify that she told Kennedy she couldn’t “preapprove recommendations without reviewing the evidence” and “had no basis to fire scientific experts.”
During his appearance before the Senate health committee, Kennedy recalled of his conversation with Monarez, “I told her that she had to resign because I asked her, ‘are you a trustworthy person?’ and she said no.”
Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts told Kennedy at the time that this was not what Monarez had said publicly about her removal from the job. Kennedy responded that Monarez was lying.
Monarez will tell the panel, “Secretary Kennedy told me he could not trust me. I had refused to commit to approving vaccine recommendations without evidence, fire career officials without cause, or resign — and I had shared my concerns with this committee. I told the secretary that if he believed he could not trust me, he could fire me.”
She’ll recall that a day after that conversation, she was told she still “had my job,” but Kennedy’s expectations of her had not changed — “approval of ACIP recommendations and dismissal of career scientists.”
“I would not commit to that, and I believe it is the true reason I was fired,” Monarez will say.
Monarez and Dr. Debra Houry, who resigned as the CDC’s chief medical officer and deputy director for program and science at around the same time that Monarez was fired, are scheduled to appear before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Wednesday at 10 a.m. for a hearing to review the shakeups at the agency.
In June, Kennedy ousted all 17 ACIP members and replaced them with hand-picked officials, some of whom critics say are vaccine skeptics. The newly constituted panel is set to meet on Thursday and Friday and is likely to discuss updated vaccine recommendations for Hepatitis B, RSV and MMRV, or measles, mumps, rubella and varicella.
During Kennedy’s testimony, Democrats and a few Republican senators on the committee told Kennedy they were concerned about his and the CDC’s vaccine panel’s approach to these recommendations.
“Secretary Kennedy, in your confirmation hearing, you promised to uphold the highest standards for vaccines. Since then, I’ve grown deeply concerned,” GOP Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming said. “The public has seen measles outbreaks, leadership at the National Institute of Health questioning the use of mRNA vaccines, the recently confirmed director of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention fired. Americans don’t know who to rely on.”
HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said in a statement that Monarez’s prepared remarks “have factual inaccuracies.” He said she “acted maliciously to undermine” President Trump’s agenda.
He accused her of “neglecting to implement President Trump’s executive orders, making policy decisions without the knowledge or consent of Secretary Kennedy or the White House, limiting badge access for Trump’s political appointees, and removing a Secretarial appointee without consulting anyone.”
“When she refused to acknowledge her insubordination, President Trump fired her,” Nixon said.
Houry, according to her prepared remarks, is expected to tell senators the collaboration between the CDC and HHS “changed drastically” when Kennedy took over the department. She plans to say she and other agency heads resigned when it became apparent that Monarez and CDC leadership “were expected to serve as rubber stamps” for Kennedy’s decisions.
According to Houry’s testimony, before Monarez was confirmed, when there was no permanent CDC director, senior CDC officials were not invited to brief Kennedy on key diseases like measles, and policy changes were announced “unilaterally.”
“That is not “gold standard science,” Houry will say. “It is policymaking by fiat.”
Kaia Hubbard and
contributed to this report.
