Former CDC officials say Kennedy Jr. made children less safe and politicized

Two former high -ranking members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention American each declared on Thursday that they were concerned by avoidable diseases for children will rebelliously return under what they have qualified as politicization of health sciences by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Susan Monarerez, who directed the government agency for only 29 days this summer, told the Senate health committee that she had received two ultimatums from Kennedy, the secretary of health, neither.

Orders included the dismissal of high -ranking managers of CDC without reason, and the vaccine recommendations prior to an advisory panel that Kennedy earlier this year had completely reappoed with his own selections.

“Even under pressure, I could not replace evidence with ideology or compromise my integrity,” she said.

Kennedy, during a controversial hearing two weeks ago, described Monarez as admitting to him that she was “unworthy of confidence”, an accusation that amazed certain members of the Congress panel, and that Monarez has since said was not true. During the session on Wednesday, she said that Kennedy was turned upside down, she shared the details of a conversation they had with CDC deputies, judging her not trustworthy in the process.

Kennedy has focused on the health of children as a secretary of health, expressing the desire to revise nutritional directives in addition to the changes in vaccine calendar. Monarez said she believed Kennedy’s intentions once, but said on Wednesday that he should resign given what she considered dishonesty in her appearance of the committee on September 4.

Kennedy did not testify under oath at the previous hearing, which Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont said that he did not remember a secretary to health before the panel.

While the hearing was not marked by explosions, the republican senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma has both alarmed Sanders and the president of the Bill Cassidy committee of Louisiana, also republican, towards the end of the session.

Mullin said he was thinking that Monarez was dishonest in his story of Kennedy’s meeting, suggesting that there was a recording before leaving the panel after his question.

Cassidy asked why the meeting would have been recorded and said that Mullin should help provide any registration to the Committee or withdraw its questioning line. A few minutes later, Cassidy advised the panel that Mullin had told journalists outside the hearing that he had “cheated” by suggesting that there was a recording.

Injured by the accusations of Kennedy

Monarez said that his only expanse with his boss was two weeks after a shooter had struck the CDC seat in Atlanta with 180 laps. She said Kennedy had never called to express her sympathies on the date of the incident, nor at their meeting.

David Rose, a police officer, was killed in the violence that led to the August 8 shootout. The author, who would have been irritated by the COVVI-19 vaccine, pulled 500 laps in all and died of a self-inflicted ball injury.

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Monarez seemed to choke when she told a certain number of angry charges that Kennedy launched during the same meeting, in particular by calling the CDC “the most corrupt federal agency in the world”, and suggesting that some officials were liable to the pharmaceutical industry.

Before the health committee, Debra Houry, a former CDC chief doctor, said there was a palpable fear after the shooting, and that security measures should be taken to ensure that sensitive private information from certain staff members were not accessible to the public. She resigned at the end of August, expressing concerns about the independence of the agency.

Houry said that she had first learned about changes in COVVI-19 vaccine advice thanks to an article on X, where Kennedy Jr. announced that the vaccine would no longer be included in the vaccinations recommended by the CDC for healthy children and pregnant women.

“CDC scientists have still not seen scientific data or justification for this change,” said Houry. “It’s not a standard science.”

Monarez and Houry said they were both worried about the resurgence of measles and hepatitis in children. Hundreds have been infected with a Texas measles epidemic this year, including two non -vaccinated children.

Houry highlighted the long -term potential effects of the disease, with a child from California recently dies of panencephalitis linked to infection of measles years earlier.

Monarez also said Kennedy at some point suggested that he meet Aaron Siri, a lawyer who would have doubted the efficiency of the polio vaccine.

Sanders, an independent who is the member of the committee of minority democrats, has excrupted the Secretary of Health as a person “who does not believe in the established sciences and who listens to conspiracy theorists and ideologues rather than doctors and health professionals”.

“It is absurd to have to say this in 2025, but the vaccines are safe and effective,” said Sanders. “It is the overwhelming consensus of the scientific and medical community.”

Vaccinating panel to meet

In the direction of the session, Cassidy, a doctor, noted that the senators had just approved the confirmation of Monarez with Kennedy praising his “unputable scientific references”. It was confirmed by a vote of 51-47.

“How, what happened?” Cassidy said. “Have we failed? Was there something we should have done differently?”

Look for the Surprising Discommunication of Monarez:

White House says she pulled the director of the newly installed CDC

The White House ourselves ourselves from Susan Monarez, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, just a few weeks after being confirmed in work. However, her lawyers say that she remains the director of the CDC, saying that only American president Donald Trump can dismiss her and the announcement of the White House is insufficient.

The Républicains Rand Paul of Kentucky and Roger Marshall from Kansas, both having medical history, avoided process issues, suggesting that Kennedy was right to suggest that COVVI-19 and Hepatitis B vaccines were not necessary for most children.

Other Republicans have challenged the lawyers that Monarez selected to represent it following its dismissal. Mark Zaid and Abbe Lowell, the representatives, previously represented customers who opposed President Donald Trump in dispute.

The Senate hearing takes place just a day before the vaccine panel begins its two-day session in Atlanta to discuss the blows against COVID-19, hepatitis B and chickenpox. We do not know how the panel could vote on the recommendations, although members have raised doubts as to whether hepatitis B strokes administered to newborns are necessary and have suggested that the COVVI-19 recommendations should be more limited.

Houry said that the agenda of this meeting was motivated by political staff at DC, which, during his decade of experience at the CDC, within the framework of democratic and republican administrations, which she had not lived.

Monarez said that she would not prejudge Atlanta’s meeting, but admitted that she was “very nervous” on what could happen, in response to a question to find out if the parents would be able to trust vaccination advice for children resulting from the meeting.

Monarez was the first non-medicine to direct the CDC, although briefly, in its 70 years of history.

She holds a doctorate in microbiology and immunology from the University of Wisconsin and has carried out postdoctoral research at the University of Stanford. Before the CDC, Monarez was widely known for its government roles in health and biosecurity technology.

Monarez was not the first choice of the administration. She became the candidate after the withdrawal of David Weldon’s name in the face of a handful of Republicans expressing concerns.

Weldon, 71, an internal medical doctor who served in the House of Representatives, was a leader in a surge in the Congress for Research on the Causes of Autism and rejected studies that found no causal link between infantile vaccines and autism.

Jim O’Neill, a former investor, criticism of Kennedy’s health and deputy regulations, is now the interim director of the CDC.