Extract from Reuters
Aug
28 (Reuters) - CDC Director Susan Monarez was fired on Wednesday after
resisting changes to vaccine policy that were advanced by Health
Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and that she believed contradicted
scientific evidence, a close associate said on Thursday.
The revelation and interviews with top officials
who resigned in the wake of the director's firing underscored the
growing division over the U.S. approach to public health and the
upheaval at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which
protects U.S. health and has played a global role in eradicating
smallpox, reducing polio, and controlling HIV/AIDS.
Fellow
CDC employees cheered the three departing officials as they left the
Atlanta campus on Thursday in a show of defiance toward Kennedy and his
unscientific claims about vaccines.
Richard Besser, former acting director of the CDC, told reporters that he spoke with Monarez on Wednesday.
"She
said that there were two things she would never do in the job. One was
anything that was deemed illegal, and the second was anything that she
felt flew in the face of science, and she said she was asked to do both
of those," Besser said. He added that Monarez refused to dismiss her
leadership team without cause.
The
three top CDC officials who quit after Monarez's dismissal told Reuters
on Thursday they too had resigned over anti-vaccine policies and
misinformation pushed by Kennedy and his team.
Kennedy has made sweeping changes to vaccine policies
since taking office this year, including firing its entire expert
vaccine advisory panel and replacing them with like-minded anti-vaccine
activists and other hand-picked advisers.
The
White House named Jim O’Neill, currently deputy secretary of the
Department of Health and Human Services, as interim leader of the CDC,
an administration official said.
"(Monarez) was not aligned with the president's mission to Make America Healthy Again,
and the secretary asked her to resign. She said she would, and then she
said she wouldn't, so the president fired her," White House spokeswoman
Karoline Leavitt said on Thursday.
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