Former Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention Director Susan Monarez will come earlier than the Senate subsequent week for her first public look since she was pushed out of her place, sparking a back-and-forth with Health and Human Companies Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over his vaccine coverage agenda.
Monarez shall be joined by Deb Houry, former chief medical officer and deputy director for program and science at CDC, who was one in every of 4 high CDC officers who resigned in protest after Monarez was ousted. The listening to shall be on Sept. 17 at 10 a.m.
The 2 former officers will testify earlier than the Senate committee on Well being, Training, Labor and Pensions (HELP), which is chaired by Republican Sen. Invoice Cassidy, a health care provider from Louisiana who was one of many key votes to substantiate Kennedy however has since turn into one in every of his sharpest critics within the Republican Get together.
“Kids’s well being should be the highest precedence. I thank President Trump and Secretary Kennedy for making radical transparency a precedence,” Cassidy mentioned in an announcement to announce the listening to.
Susan Monarez, nominee to be director of the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention, testifies earlier than a Senate Well being, Training, Labor, and Pensions Committee affirmation listening to on Capitol Hill in Washington, June 25, 2025.
Kevin Mohatt/Reuters
“To guard kids’s well being, People have to know what has occurred and is occurring on the CDC. They have to be reassured that their youngster’s well being is given precedence. Radical transparency is the one approach to try this,” Cassidy mentioned.
Monarez, who HHS publicly introduced was “now not director” on a Wednesday afternoon in late August simply 4 weeks after she’d been confirmed to the place, drew widespread consideration when she refused to go away her submit, asking President Donald Trump to weigh in and hearth her straight if he agreed together with his HHS secretary.
She mentioned she was pushed out as a result of she would not comply with rubber stamp Kennedy’s agenda or hearth high-ranking scientists.
The transfer put a highlight on Kennedy’s vaccine coverage adjustments, which have ramped up in latest weeks. Kennedy cancelled round $500 million in contracts for mRNA vaccines in early August, modified the suggestions for wholesome kids and pregnant girls to obtain COVID-19 vaccinations and, by means of the FDA, oversaw the narrowing of approval for the up to date COVID pictures this fall to solely individuals over 65, or youthful People with underlying situations.
Later this month, a CDC committee will meet to debate vaccine suggestions extra broadly, together with the measles, mumps, rubella, varicella (MMRV) vaccine, and Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV). Kennedy has changed all the members of the committee with handpicked individuals, a few of whom have expressed criticism of vaccines. Requested by ABC Information on Tuesday if he plans to restrict entry to any of these vaccines, Kennedy mentioned the committee would determine after a “actual gold customary scientific evaluate.”
“Dad and mom deserve a CDC they’ll belief to place kids above politics, proof above ideology and info above concern,” Monarez wrote in an opinion piece within the Wall Avenue Journal on Sept. 4. “I used to be fired for holding that line.”
Kennedy, who testified earlier than the Senate final week in a extremely contentious listening to, disputed Monarez’ model of occasions.
“Did you, in reality, do what Director Monarez has mentioned you probably did, which is inform her, ‘Simply go together with vaccine suggestions, even in case you did not suppose such suggestions aligned with scientific proof?'” Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., requested Kennedy.
“No, I didn’t,” Kennedy replied.
Kennedy stood by the latest shakeups at CDC, saying they had been “completely obligatory changes to revive the company to its position because the world’s gold customary public well being company with a central mission of defending People from infectious illness.”
