The former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) delivered bombshell testimony to a Senate panel on Wednesday, alleging that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. branded CDC employees as “corrupt” and accused them of “killing children” during a heated private meeting, just days before her dismissal.
During what was at times a fiery hearing of the Senate health committee, Dr. Susan Monarez declared she was terminated for steadfastly upholding “scientific integrity.” She recounted defying Kennedy’s directives to dismiss senior CDC scientists and to approve vaccine guidelines from his chosen advisory panel without any supporting data or scientific review.
Dr. Monarez vividly portrayed the Health Secretary as a leader driven by personal beliefs, showing little regard for the expertise of government scientists. She claimed Kennedy actively blocked her communication with career CDC experts and even with senators, demanding that all policy decisions be channeled exclusively through political appointees.
“If you’re willing to sign off on decisions that are not made with the best available data and evidence, it does put at risk our children,” Dr. Monarez warned. “It puts at risk others who need these vaccines, and it takes us into a very dangerous place in public health.”
Wednesday’s hearing laid bare the turmoil within the nation’s leading public health agency, which has long been a target of Mr. Kennedy. At a recent Senate hearing, he had defended his reorganization of the agency, stating: “We are the sickest country in the world. That’s why we have to fire people at C.D.C. They did not do their job. This was their job to keep us healthy.”
Before the hearing, a spokesperson for Mr. Kennedy, Andrew Nixon, challenged Dr. Monarez’s prepared remarks. He asserted that she was fired for “acting maliciously to undermine the president’s agenda” and that the Health Secretary “is focused on restoring public trust in the CDC by ensuring transparency, accountability, and diverse scientific input.”
Dr. Monarez, along with another former CDC official, Dr. Debra Houry, provided a detailed account of the chaos inside the CDC. This included a wave of layoffs, a tragic shooting at its Atlanta headquarters that resulted in the death of a police officer, and the resignations of several top scientific leaders. Dr. Houry, who served as the agency’s former chief medical officer under four administrations, urged Mr. Kennedy to resign.
Dr. Houry informed senators that CDC vaccine experts were so shaken by the shooting incident that they are now hesitant to attach their names to their own scientific publications. Dr. Monarez noted that Mr. Kennedy did not offer condolences after the shooting; their next interaction occurred three days later, during his tour of the CDC headquarters.
The three-hour session took place as the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), the influential vaccine panel, prepared for a crucial meeting in Atlanta. The panel’s recommendations are vital as they dictate which vaccines are covered by insurance companies and which are available without cost through the federal Vaccines for Children Program.
Dr. Monarez testified that Mr. Kennedy informed her the childhood vaccine schedule would be altered in September, baseless claims that “there was no science or evidence” to support existing recommendations. Critics, including Mr. Kennedy, have advocated for the CDC to withdraw its long-standing recommendation for infants to receive the hepatitis B vaccination at birth.
“I’m very nervous about it,” Dr. Monarez stated regarding the meeting. “There is real risk that recommendations could be made restricting access to vaccines for children and others in need without rigorous scientific review.”
The hearing was called by Senator Bill Cassidy, a Republican from Louisiana and chairman of the Senate health committee, whose critical vote had previously paved the way for Mr. Kennedy’s confirmation. A physician himself, Senator Cassidy is a staunch advocate for vaccines.
When asked after the hearing if Americans should trust decisions made by the vaccine advisory panel if the childhood vaccination schedule is changed, he responded with a resounding no. The senator, a liver specialist, informed reporters that the hepatitis B vaccine, administered to infants shortly after birth, has reduced the annual number of cases in children from 20,000 to approximately 20.
Senator Cassidy, who maintained he would “hold any judgment” until the health committee heard from Mr. Kennedy, declined to state whether Dr. Monarez’s testimony or the Health Secretary’s earlier statements before a different committee were more convincing.
“I’m confident that he’ll come and confident that he’ll share his perspective,” the senator remarked about Mr. Kennedy.
However, two other Republican physicians on the committee—Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky and Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas—expressed doubts about the CDC’s vaccination schedule and whether all recommendations were sufficiently backed by rigorous science.
“The biggest difference in philosophy that I see is that I think the CDC is the cause of vaccine hesitancy,” Senator Marshall told Dr. Monarez. “You are the problem.”
Wednesday’s hearing marked the first public assessment of Mr. Kennedy’s leadership by health officials who served under him during his controversial tenure. It also highlighted the unpredictable nature of public health politics.
Some Republicans who had voted to confirm Dr. Monarez now accused her of dishonesty. Three senators—Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, Jim Banks of Indiana, and Ashley Moody of Florida—chastised her for retaining Mark Zaid, an attorney known for speaking out against President Trump, as her counsel.
Conversely, Democrats, who had all opposed her confirmation, hailed Dr. Monarez as a hero. Senator Tim Kaine, a Democrat from Virginia, even offered a public apology.
“I had concern about your backbone, and I was wrong,” Mr. Kaine admitted. “And I apologize to you for being wrong.”
Despite Mr. Kennedy’s promise of “radical transparency,” both Dr. Monarez and Dr. Houry testified that vaccine policy decisions were made without public scientific discourse. Dr. Houry revealed she learned of the government’s decision against recommending the Covid-19 vaccine for healthy children and pregnant women via social media, after Mr. Kennedy posted about it on X.
She explained that she had requested a written memorandum and supporting data, as she “couldn’t implement guidance based on a tweet.” However, the necessary data was not provided. She also recounted having to swiftly counter Kennedy’s misleading statements regarding vaccines.
“He said things like, ‘vaccines had fetal parts,’ and I had to send a note to our leadership team to correct that misinformation,” Dr. Houry stated.
Both Dr. Monarez and Dr. Houry voiced grave concerns for the future of public health and expressed worries that the United States is unprepared for a future pandemic.
Dr. Monarez cautioned that if vaccines become less accessible, preventable diseases could resurface with devastating consequences for American children. The nation has already experienced a resurgence of measles this year, and cases of whooping cough are currently higher than before the Covid pandemic.
Dr. Monarez consistently maintained her willingness to consider changes to vaccine recommendations, but only when supported by robust data and evidence. Mr. Kennedy, she indicated, held a different perspective.
She testified that on August 25, Mr. Kennedy explicitly instructed her to pre-approve every recommendation from the vaccine advisory panel, “without data or science.” He also ordered her to fire career officials responsible for vaccine policy without cause. If she refused, she said, Mr. Kennedy told her to resign.
“I could have stayed silent, agreed to the demands, and no one would have known,” Dr. Monarez concluded. “What the public would have seen were scientists dismissed without cause and vaccine protections quietly eroded, all under the authority of a Senate-confirmed director with unimpeachable credentials. I could have kept the office, the title, but I would have lost the one thing that cannot be replaced: my integrity.”