CDC director Susan Monarez is ousted less than a month after taking oath

The director of the main American public health agency is ousted after less than a month of work, and several other senior health officials have also resigned.

“Susan Monarez is no longer director of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We thank her for her service devoted to the American people,” the United States Ministry of Health and Social Services (HHS) wrote in an article on social networks.

Department officials did not explain why Monarez is no longer with the CDC. Before the announcement of the ministry’s afternoon, she told the Associated Press: “I cannot comment.” On Wednesday evening, his lawyers, Mark Zaid and Abbe David Lowell, published a statement that said that she had not resigned or said that she had been dismissed.

“When CDC director Susan Monarez refused to stadium non -scientific rubber, reckless directives and health experts dedicated to fire, she chose to protect the public to serve a political program. For this, she was targeted,” the lawyers wrote.

“This is not a single civil servant. This is the systematic dismantling of public health institutions, the silence of experts and the dangerous politicization of science. The attack on Dr. Monarez is a warning to each American: our systems based on evidence is compromised from the interior,” said lawyer.

The HHS announcement about Monarez coincided with the resignations of at least three senior CDC officials.

The CDC chief doctor, Dr. Debra Houry, told Reuters that she and Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, director of the National Center For Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, also left after the resignation. They have cited an increase in the disinformation of health, in particular on vaccines, attacks against science, the armament of public health and try to reduce the budget and the influence of the agency in their letters of resignation, examined by Reuters.

Dr. Daniel Jernigan, director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, also resigned, a few days after the agency reported the first American human case of Vers Vis linked to an in progress epidemic in Central America. Jen Layden, director of the CDC Office of Public Health Data, surveillance and technology, also resigned, reported NBC News.

“Recently, the overestimation of risks and the rise of disinformation has cost lives, as shown by the greatest number of American measles in 30 years and the violent attack on our agency,” Hory wrote in his resignation.

HHS officials did not immediately answer questions about resignations or declaration by Monarez lawyers.

Some public health experts have criticized the exodus.

“The loss of experienced experts in world class infectious diseases of the CDC is directly linked to the failure of the managers of extremists currently in charge of the Ministry of Health and Social Services,” said Michael Osterholm, researcher of infectious diseases of the University of Minnesota.

“These departures are a serious loss for America. They make our country less safe and less prepared for public health emergencies.”

Call of the canceled agency

The Washington Post reported that Monarez was ousted earlier on Wednesday, citing several officials from the Trump administration familiar with the issue.

Citing several anonymous employees of the CDC, the newspaper reported that Monarez had canceled a call at the agency level on Friday which was scheduled for Monday.

Monarez, a federal government scientist, was confirmed by the US Senate on July 29 to lead the CDC after US President Donald Trump appointed him earlier in the year. She was sworn in by the secretary of health and social services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on July 31.

Monarrez, 50, was the 21st CDC director. His departure from the agency follows a shoot at the CDC headquarters in Atlanta earlier in the month.

The 2nd choice of Trump for the role

Monarez was the second candidate of the Trump administration for the role. In March, the president withdrew his appointment from the former member of the republican congress and vaccination critic Dave Weldon, an ally of Kennedy, a few hours before his planned confirmation hearing.

Since he was appointed senior American health official, Kennedy has targeted the vaccination policy and in May, he has withdrawn a federal recommendation for the COVVI-19 plans for pregnant women and healthy children.

He followed in June in the scene all members of the CDC expert advice committee, which recommends how the vaccines are used and by whom, and replacing them with handpicked advisers, including other anti-vaccine activists.

Kennedy made major decisions on the vaccines in the absence of a CDC director while Monarez was waiting for confirmation and continued to do so thereafter. The announcement that she was ousted from the CDC comes on the same day, Kennedy announced changes to the eligibility for the cocvid vaccine.