CDC Plunged Into Turmoil as Ousted Chief Susan Monarez Refuses to Step Down

Published: 28 August 2025 | The English Chronicle Desk

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the nation’s most important public health agency, has been thrown into chaos after its newly appointed director, Dr Susan Monarez, was abruptly declared removed by the Trump administration—only for her to refuse to resign, insisting she was being targeted for upholding scientific integrity.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released a terse statement on Wednesday evening announcing her departure, thanking Monarez for her “dedicated service” but offering no explanation for the decision. Monarez, who was confirmed by the Senate and sworn in just last month, rejected the claim, with her lawyers Mark Zaid and Abbe David Lowell insisting that she remains in her role and has not received official notification of termination.

“Dr Monarez has neither resigned nor received notification from the White House that she has been fired,” her attorneys said. “As a person of integrity and devoted to science, she will not resign. She has been targeted for refusing to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and for protecting dedicated health experts from political purges.”

The conflicting statements have left Washington and the CDC itself in confusion over whether the agency even has a functioning leader. White House deputy press secretary Kush Desai doubled down late Wednesday night, insisting Monarez had been terminated, but pointedly avoided stating that the decision had come directly from President Trump. Under federal law, only the president can dismiss a Senate-confirmed official, leaving the legality of the move in doubt.

Monarez’s apparent ousting has triggered a wave of high-level resignations within the CDC, including Dr Demetre Daskalakis, head of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases; Dr Deb Houry, the agency’s chief medical officer; and Dr Daniel Jernigan, director of the Center for Emerging Zoonotic Infectious Diseases. In their resignation letters, each decried what they described as the “weaponization of public health” and the erosion of scientific independence.

“I am not able to serve in this role any longer because of the ongoing weaponizing of public health,” Daskalakis wrote in a letter obtained by Inside Medicine. Houry echoed the concern, warning that science at the CDC “should never be censored or subject to political pauses or interpretations.”

The turmoil follows sweeping and controversial moves by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who earlier this week hailed the Food and Drug Administration’s decision to revoke emergency use authorization for Pfizer, Moderna, and Novavax Covid-19 vaccines. While CDC scientists estimate the vaccines saved more than 3.2 million American lives, under the new policy they will now be limited only to older adults and individuals with serious underlying health conditions—and only with the approval of a newly reconstituted advisory panel that includes vaccine opponents.

Monarez, 50, became the 21st director of the CDC and the first to undergo Senate confirmation under a 2023 law. She was sworn in on July 31, making her the shortest-serving director in the agency’s 79-year history. Her nomination had followed Trump’s withdrawal of his initial choice, David Weldon.

Public health leaders have reacted with alarm to the deepening crisis. Dr Craig Spencer, a professor at Brown University’s School of Public Health, described the situation bluntly: “It’s unclear whether the CDC director—confirmed just weeks ago—has been fired or not. Absolute chaos. Incredible career professionals have resigned, sounding a massive alarm. This leaves the country dangerously unprepared.”

Dr Ashish Jha, the Biden administration’s former coronavirus response coordinator, warned of “wholesale destruction of leadership at the CDC,” while Dr Jonathan Reiner of George Washington University argued that Secretary Kennedy is increasingly becoming “a liability for the White House.”

For now, the standoff between Monarez and federal health officials has left the nation’s top public health agency leaderless at a time of heightened global health concerns. With critical CDC divisions now without leadership and political uncertainty surrounding the agency’s future, experts warn that the public health infrastructure of the United States faces one of its greatest crises of credibility in decades.