Fired CDC director clashed with Kennedy on vaccine policy.

Extract from Reuters

By Julie Steenhuysen and Dan Levine

August 29, 20254:57 PM GMT+10Updated August 29, 2025

• Summary
• Companies

• White House says Susan Monarez not aligned with Trump's agenda
• Three departing CDC officials cheered as they leave Atlanta campus
• Kennedy says maybe some people should not be working at CDC anymore
• White House appoints HHS top deputy as acting leader of CDC

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.