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Two weeks after a Senate confirmation vote, Susan Monarez has been forced out of her role as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to reporting by The Washington Post and confirmation by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The departure is the latest in a series of major departures at the troubled public health agency.

Ars Technica first saw reporting of the change in leadership from The Washington Post, which was based on reporting from several officials within the Trump administration. An HHS representative did not confirm Monarez’s ouster when contacted by Ars, but directed Ars to a post on the department’s official X account:

“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.”

The post did not explain why Monarez had been forced out or who would take over. But, The Washington Post reported that U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had been pressuring Monarez over her position on COVID-19 vaccines. Kennedy, an outspoken anti-vaccine activist, reportedly asked her to revoke approvals of the vaccines, but Monarez refused to do so without CDC’s vaccine advisory committees first signing off. Kennedy then asked her to resign, allegedly telling her that she did not have the spine to back Trump’s policies.

Monarez did not resign. Instead, she called Senator Bill Cassidy (R-La. ), who had been instrumental in Kennedy’s own Senate confirmation this year, when he extracted certain promises from him. Cassidy pushed back against Kennedy’s demand for Monarez, leading to a screaming match between the two officials. It was only after that exchange that Monarez was told by other administration officials that she either had to resign or be fired.

Monarez’s lawyers Mark Zaid and Abbe Lowell then issued a statement on social media, however, that said she had not resigned and that the White House had not yet served her with a termination notice. “Her ouster came after she refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts,” the statement said. “She chose protecting the public over serving a political agenda.” Zaid confirmed to Ars Technica that as of 8:15 p.m. ET on August 27, Monarez had not yet received a termination notice.

CDC in Crisis

Monarez’s confirmation in late July had been a breakthrough. After a 2022 law mandated Senate confirmation of CDC directors, she was approved in a 51–47 party-line vote and became the first director in the agency’s history to face a Senate confirmation vote. Kennedy himself administered the oath of office on July 31, and congratulated her on her “unimpeachable scientific credentials,” and expressed confidence in her ability to help restore the CDC’s reputation.

Her own résumé is a long and distinguished one. A PhD in microbiology and immunology, Monarez has served as deputy director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) within the Biden administration. She had also held senior posts with 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 briefly led the CDC earlier this year as its acting director before her formal nomination by Trump and subsequent resignation.

Monarez’s appointment was welcomed by public health officials. Jennifer Nuzzo of Brown University described Monarez as “a loyal, hardworking civil servant who leads with evidence and pragmatism.” Georges Benjamin, the head of the American Public Health Association, praised her as a strong researcher and a skilled manager.

But Monarez’s tenure was ended in the context of an agency in freefall. The CDC has been laying off or offering buyouts to hundreds of employees, while other programs have been cut or hampered. Kennedy himself has not helped, for example, by calling COVID-19 vaccines “the deadliest vaccine ever made” or by accusing the CDC of being “a cesspool of corruption.”

The situation was made even worse when on August 8, a gunman radicalized by vaccine misinformation shot his way onto the CDC campus. A total of around 500 shots were fired in the attack, and about 200 hit six different CDC buildings. One local police officer was killed, and other CDC staff had to scramble for cover. The shooter was later found to have blamed vaccines for his own health issues.

Stat News also confirmed that three other high-level officials have resigned, Daniel Jernigan, the director of the National Center for Emerging Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, the CDC’s Chief Medical Officer Deb Houry, and Demetre Daskalakis, who headed the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

In his parting message, Daskalakis wrote, “I am not able to serve in this role any longer because of the ongoing weaponization of public health.” Houry’s own note said that science must “never be censored or subject to political interpretations.”

Separately, Politico reported that Jennifer Layden, the head of the Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance, and Technology, also resigned the same day.

Many inside the CDC and in public health more broadly are marking this as a new low for an agency that was once seen as the standard-bearer of evidence-based medicine. The CDC is instead now seeing high-level resignations, political interference with science, and a general crisis of trust at a time when public health threats are mounting.