The lawyer of lawyers for the centers for disease control and prevention (CDC), Susan Monarez, said Wednesday night that she would not resign, despite the attempts of the Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to expel her for not putting a “rubber print” on “reckless, reckless and experts in health experts.”
“Dr. Monararez did not give up or have received notification from the White House that has been fired, and as a person of integrity and dedicated to science, he will not resign,” lawyers Mark Zaid and Abbe Lowell wrote in a statement in the name of Monarch.
It occurs after HHS published a statement on Wednesday with the earliest Wednesday, stating that “Susan Monarez is no longer director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”
“We thank him for his service dedicated to the American people,” he wrote the account.
Susan Monaz, nominated, will be the director of the Centers for the Control and Prevention of Diseases testifies during their confirmation hearing before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Work and Pensions, on June 25, 2025 in Washington.
Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images
The White House, which has the authority to dismiss Monarch, did not respond to a request for comments on the next steps.
Monarch, the recently jury director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), was confirmed by the Senate only four weeks ago.
Monarch was the second candidate for the position, after President Donald Trump’s candidate Dave Weldon did not seem to have the votes for a confirmation of the Senate, partly due to his history of skepticism of vaccines.
Monarch, during his confirmation audience, was clear about his support for vaccines: “I think vaccines save lives. I think we must continue to support the promotion of vaccine use,” he said in July.
But in recent months, his boss, Kennedy, has made significant changes in vaccine policy, particularly for Covid vaccines, which have the potential to limit access to the shot.
Earlier on Wednesday, Kennedy’s FDA reduced the scope of who will be approved so that updated vaccines are available this fall and winter.
The last vaccines were only approved for older people, adults 65 years of age or older, and for younger people if they have at least an underlying condition that puts them at greater risk of serious diseases, starting from the previous guide that all 6 months or more vaccinated.
The FDA’s decision will come before the CDCs at the end of this month, where Monarch and a Committee of Advisors, recently replaced by options selected by Kennedy, will have the opportunity to intervene, and Monarch will finally need to sign.
In March, Kennedy also supervised a change in the calendar of pediatric vaccines, changing to a “shared clinical decision making” model that leaves the decision to vaccinate children against Covid to parents, together with the advice of a doctor.
Kennedy has defended changes in vaccine policy as a progress of “science, security and common sense.”
Monarch’s lawyers said Wednesday that he was “attacked” for delaying Kennedy’s changes.
“When the director of the CDC, Susan Monarch, refused to seal of non -scientific rubber, reckless directives and shot dedicated health experts, chose to protect the public instead of serving a political agenda. Therefore, it has been attacked,” Zaid and Lowell said in the statement.
After the HHS statement about Monaz’s departure, the three highest career officials in the CDC resigned, according to the emails obtained by ABC News.
Deb Houry, medical director and deputy program of Program and Sciences of the CDC, Dan Jernigan, director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, and Demetre Daskalakis, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, sent electronic emails to colleagues on Wednesday night informing them that they presented their resignations presented by changing presignations in the CDC.
“I can no longer serve in this role due to the continuous weapon of public health,” Daskalakis wrote to his colleagues.
“You are the best team I have worked with, and you continue to shine despite this dark cloud on the agency and our profession,” he said.
Houry, who has worked on CDCs through Democratic and Republican administrations, said that “the science of CDC should never be censored or subject to pauses or political interpretations.”
“I am committed to protecting public health, but continuous changes prevent me from continuing in my work as an agency leader. This is a heartbreaking decision that I take with a heavy heart,” Houry wrote.
The wave of exits occurs for a tumultuous moment for the CDC, only a few weeks after a shooting on the main campus of Atlanta that hit multiple buildings. The authorities said they discovered that the alleged shooter had been housing complaints of years with the COVID-19 vaccine.
Monarch’s departure was first reported by the Washington Post.
