The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been thrown into unprecedented turmoil after the abrupt firing of its director, Susan Monarez, by the Trump administration on August 28, 2025. The move, which sparked the immediate resignation of four senior leaders at the agency, has left America’s top public health body leaderless and at the center of a heated political and scientific storm, according to reporting from Reuters, CBC, and NewsNation.
The White House defended its decision, with Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt telling reporters that President Trump “has the authority to fire those who are not aligned with his mission.” The administration cited Monarez’s refusal to step down and her alleged misalignment with Trump’s “Making America Healthy Again” agenda as the primary reasons for her dismissal. The firing comes amid a broader push by President Trump and Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to reshape federal health agencies and vaccine policy.
Monarez, who was nominated by Trump in March and confirmed by the Senate less than a month ago, is contesting her removal. Her attorneys, Mark S. Zaid and Abbe David Lowell, argue that only the president himself can fire a Senate-confirmed appointee, and that the White House’s notification was “legally deficient.” Monarez’s legal team insists she remains CDC director, at least for now. In a statement, they said she was targeted for refusing to support “unscientific, reckless directives.”
The leadership crisis at the CDC quickly escalated as three senior officials—Dr. Debra Houry, Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, and Dr. Daniel Jernigan—resigned and were escorted from the Atlanta headquarters on Thursday morning. According to CBC, hundreds of supporters gathered at the CDC campus to cheer on the departing officials, offering bouquets and chanting, “U.S.A. not RFK.” The show of support reflected the rare bipartisan alarm that has swept through public health circles and Congress alike.
Dr. Daskalakis, who resigned as head of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, voiced deep concerns about the future of vaccine policy. “I fear that children will be hurt by poor decision making around vaccines,” he said. Dr. Houry, formerly the agency’s deputy director and chief medical officer, told The Associated Press that Monarez had tried to guard against political meddling in scientific research and health recommendations. “We were going to see if she was able to weather the storm. And when she was not, we were done,” Houry explained.
Monarez’s ouster is the latest flashpoint in a year marked by sweeping changes at the CDC and HHS. Since taking office in January, Kennedy has fired the CDC’s expert vaccine advisory panel and replaced its members with vaccine skeptics and anti-vaccine activists, a move that has drawn sharp criticism from the scientific community. According to Reuters, Kennedy has also shut out several doctors’ organizations that have long helped shape vaccine recommendations.
The next meeting of the CDC’s reshaped advisory vaccine committee is scheduled for September 2025, and its recommendations on immunizations are already under intense scrutiny. Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who chairs the Senate committee overseeing Kennedy’s department, has called for congressional oversight. “Serious allegations have been made about the meeting agenda, membership, and lack of scientific process being followed,” Cassidy warned. “These decisions directly impact children’s health and the meeting should not occur until significant oversight has been conducted.”
Monarez’s resistance to political interference was well-known inside the agency. Dr. Richard Besser, a former CDC acting director, told CBC that Monarez had refused orders to fire her management team and would not automatically sign off on recommendations from Kennedy’s handpicked advisers. “Dr. Monarez was one of the last lines of defence against this administration’s dangerous agenda,” Besser said. Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, echoed these concerns, noting, “The scientific community is beginning to draw a line in the sand and say, ‘No way.’”
The resigning officials cited a rise in health misinformation, attacks on science, the weaponization of public health, and attempts to cut the CDC’s budget as reasons for their departures, according to resignation letters reviewed by Reuters. Dr. Daskalakis described the situation as untenable: “I came to the point, personally, where I think our science will be compromised, and that’s my line in the sand.”
The CDC’s leadership vacuum comes at a critical moment. The agency has faced controversy throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, struggling to balance political pressures with public health imperatives. Earlier this month, a police officer was killed in a shooting at the CDC’s Atlanta headquarters, an incident fueled by anger over COVID-19 vaccines and conspiracy theories. A memorial to the officer remains outside the building, a somber reminder of the stakes involved.
Monarez’s tenure, if ultimately ended, would be the shortest for any CDC director since the agency’s founding in 1946. She was brought in after Trump’s first nominee, David Weldon—a former congressman and vaccine skeptic—was withdrawn in March amid controversy. Questions about Monarez’s loyalty to the “Make America Healthy Again” movement surfaced almost immediately, especially given her previous support for COVID-19 vaccines, which Kennedy has routinely criticized.
Secretary Kennedy has not shied away from his anti-vaccine stance. During a Fox News interview on August 28, he stated, “The agency is in trouble, and we need to fix it—and we are fixing it—and it may be that some people should not be working there anymore.” He has also launched a department-wide effort to investigate the rise in autism rates among U.S. children, claiming—without scientific evidence—that “environmental toxins” are to blame. “We are now developing evidence, sufficient evidence to ask for regulatory action on some of those [causes], or at least recommendations,” Kennedy said.
The White House, for its part, has made no apologies for its aggressive approach. President Trump has asserted sweeping executive authority over federal agencies, a stance that has been partially upheld by a conservative-leaning Supreme Court. In addition to the CDC shake-up, Trump has moved to fire other Senate-confirmed officials this week, including Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook and Surface Transportation Board member Robert Primus.
For many in the scientific and medical communities, the events at the CDC mark a turning point. The American Public Health Association and other organizations have voiced alarm about the future of the agency and the potential consequences for public health. As Dr. Houry put it, “You cannot dismantle public health and expect it to still work.”
With the CDC’s leadership in flux, and with Congress poised to investigate, the coming weeks promise to be pivotal for the future of U.S. public health policy. The outcome will likely have lasting implications for the nation’s response to infectious diseases, vaccine policy, and the delicate balance between science and politics in government decision-making.
