The former director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention Susan Monerez testifies before the Senate Commission for Health, Education, Work and Pensions in the Dirksen Senate building on September 17, 2025 in Washington. (Photo of Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Washington-Botch Director for Control and Prevention Susan Monarez testified before the US Senate Committee on Wednesday that she was released after only 29 days, because she refused to pre-use the recommendations of vaccines or fire career officials for no reason.
Monarez, who was nominated by President Donald Trump at the beginning of this year and confirmed by the Senate in July for voting on the party line, became a central figure in the country’s debate on public health last month after she refused to resign.
Monarez testified that during the meeting at the end of August, the Secretary for Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He told her that he had to commit to approval of the upcoming recommendations of the Advisory Committee for Vaccination Practices without reviewing any data or research.
“He also ordered me to release career officials responsible for vaccine policy for no reason. He said that if I do not want to do both, I should give up,” said Monarez. “I replied that I could not pre -use the recommendations without reviewing the evidence and I had no grounds to dismiss scientific experts.”
Monarez testified before the Health, Education, Work and Retirement Committee during Almost three hours of interrogation That she told Kennedy, if he didn’t trust her, she could sluggish down her.
During the same meeting at the end of August, Monarez said that Kennedy told her that the schedule of children’s vaccines would change in September and that he must be on board.
“We came to the stock exchange, in which I suggested that I would be open to the changing schedules of children’s vaccines, if evidence or science supported,” Monerez testified. “He replied that there was no scientific evidence or evidence with a schedule of vaccines in childhood.”
ACIP is to meet Thursday and Friday at the CDC headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia.
Kennedy testified before a separate Senate Commission At the beginning of this month he demanded CDC scientists in his career Fire, but he said that he did not tell her to accept the recommendations of the vaccine advisory panel without further review.
“I asked her that she stated that she was not going to log in, and I wanted to explain about it,” Kennedy said at that time. “I told her that I don’t want her to have a role if she wasn’t going to sign her.”
Safety of the disputed vaccines
Monarez said that undermining the safety of vaccines would lead to an escalate in diseases that can be avoided, some of which have long -term, and even throughout their lives consequences for children’s health.
“I believe that our children will hurt things that we know that they do not have to be harmful through – polio, measles, diphtheria, chickenpox,” she said.
The former medical director of CDC, Dr. Debra Houra, told the committee that there are significant consequences if modern members of the Advisory Committee for Vaccination Practices, who were appointed by Kennedy after releasing all former members, do not exploit strict learning and data to issue their recommendations.
“It will be painful,” Houry said. “I think that what concerns me is that these are not harmless diseases. We have just seen the case in California of a small child who died of encephalitis after the Oder. These diseases have long -term consequences, and in the United States we went so far in reversing this. We do not want our children to die.”
Houry was one From several CDC officials who gave up after learning about Monarez shooting, which took place only a few weeks The gunslinger opened fire at the CDC headquarters, killing a police officer.
Both Monrez and Houra testified, in response to the question from the democratic senator Connecticut Chris Murphy, that the confusion about vaccines and CDC recommendations had real consequences.
“I was subject to threats myself,” said Monrez. “I am very concerned about the fact that further promoting information is undermined not only in the safety and health of our children, but also will sharpen some of these tensions – the desire to hurt, if someone is burdened with the belief that people like us who are trying to help them, do not try to help them.”
Houry told the committee that the bandit launched about 500 rounds, with about 180 people hitting the building.
“Each ball was intended for a person, and each of my employees was later very traumatic,” said Houry. “I had a staff who embraced their children in the day care parking lot. There were people who were on driving when the missiles passed their heads. I have many who will not talk about vaccines now and removed their names from documents. They do not want to present themselves in public because they believe that they were personally targeted because of disinformation.”
– Did we do something bad?
The chairman of the Bill Cassidy, R-laid assistance committee, said at the beginning of the interrogation that he intended to invite Kennedy and perhaps other HHS officials to testify before his commission this year, if they wanted to answer what was said at the Wednesday hearing.
He also raised his fears that Monarez was released after less than a month in the role, despite the fact that the Trump nominated, confirmed by the Senate and Kennedy, saying that she was sworn because she had “unchanging scientific qualifications”.
“We, as senators, have to ask ourselves, did we look at something? Did we do anything bad?” Cassidy said. “It is possible that we did not do anything wrong, in this case Dr. Monarez and Dr. Houra, the weight is on you to prove that the criticism of the secretary is not real.”
Cassidy later added that “it may not be possible to find out who is telling the truth.”
The independent senator Vermont, Bernie Sanders, the ranking of the committee member, said that the decision of the Trump’s administration to release Monarez after less than a month as the director of CDC consisted in the fact that “refused to act as an eraser in order to implement the dangerous program of secretary Kennedy in order to basicly limit the use of safe and effective vaccines that would have a life. Americans and people around the world. “
Sanders argued that the loss of career officials in CDC and other federal health agencies may make it tough to solve diseases in the coming months and years.
Confusion in connection with whether Monarez was registered
There were several awkward moments at the trial, in addition to a stern discussion about the approach of Trump’s administration to public health.
One came after the Republican senator in Florida Ashley Moody mentioned twice during her five minutes of questions that Monarez talked to Cassida about his shooting, which suggests that it was in some way inappropriate.
Cassidy later issued a long statement, explaining the record.
“As the chairman of the committee with jurisdiction in the CDC, who positively reported Dr. Monarez as the director of CDC, is completely suitable for a person with fears regarding supervision to contact my office or me or, or, to be honest, any of us” – said Cassidy. “After receiving the range from Dr. Monarez, I contacted both the secretary and the White House to ask what was happening, and express concerns about what was accused. As soon as the director was released, the Aid Committee began to review the situation, because this is our responsibility, and all communication with witnesses was conducted by employees in coordination with addiction.”
Another somewhat uncomfortable and slightly misleading moment occurred after the Republican senator Oklahoma Markwayne Mullin told Monarez that someone recorded her meeting or meeting with Kennedy.
Then Mullin repeatedly questioned the memory of his conversations with Kennedy, which suggests that he had a different view because he listened to the recording.
The stock exchange prompted Cassidy to issue a committee of another statement. He seemed a bit frustrated that someone gave only one senator in the recording panel that Mullin did not share it with other members of the committee and that HHS decided not to forward the committee in response to the request for documents related to Monarez shooting.
“If the recording does not exist, I am asking Senator Mullin to withdraw his questions,” said Cassidy. “I will also notice that if he has it, I am also curious why this is only one senator and why we hear about it.”
A few minutes later, Cassidy announced in the interrogation room that Mullin told journalists elsewhere that he was wrong that a recording of a meeting or meeting appeared.
Monarez lawyer
Several GOP senators on the panel also long questioned Monrez about when and why she decided to hire a legal representation and why she finally went with Marek Zaid, who made public statements against Trump and his policy.
Monrez testified that she was not aware of the political beliefs of Zaid when she hired him and did not talk to him about politics.
“I was looking for critical advisers to help me make sure I understand and aware of everything that happened and I am preparing for what could be next, including the interrogation of the commission,” said Monarez. “Mark and I have never talked about politics. I never asked him about his policy. He never asked me about my policy.”
