WASHINGTON –– Former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Susan Monarez has begun her testimony before a congressional committee Wednesday morning — three weeks after she was fired by the Trump administration.
Monarez told lawmakers on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions that she was given an ultimatum by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. if she refused to “commit in advance to approving” vaccine recommendations and “dismiss career officials responsible for vaccine policy without cause.”
“On the morning of Aug. 25, Secretary Kennedy demanded two things of me that were inconsistent with my oath of office and the ethics required of a public official,” she told the committee.
Her remarks Wednesday echoed a chain of events she described in a Wall Street Journal op-ed — that she “was told to preapprove the recommendations of a vaccine advisory panel newly filled with people who have publicly expressed antivaccine rhetoric.”
That panel — the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices –– is expected to vote on new vaccine recommendations this week.
In the wake of Monarez’s ouster, several other agency leaders resigned in protest, and President Donald Trump picked Jim O’Neill, who had been serving as Kennedy’s deputy, to step in as interim CDC director.
Former CDC Chief Medical Officer Debra Houry, who quit after Monarez was fired, joined the former CDC director on Capitol Hill for the hearing, which was given the title “Reviewing Recent Events at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Implications for Children’s Health.”
“I resigned because CDC leaders were reduced to rubber stamps, supporting policies not based in science and putting American lives at risk,” Houry told the committee.
In a hearing earlier this month, Kennedy acknowledged that he had told Monarez to fire scientists at the agency. During his testimony, Kennedy had also addressed what he called “the recent shakeup” at the CDC.
“We are the sickest country in the world,” Kennedy told lawmakers. ”That’s why we have to fire people at CDC. They did not do their job. This was their job to keep us healthy.”
When asked about Monarez, Kennedy said, “I told her that she had to resign because I asked her, ‘Are you a trustworthy person?’ And she said, ‘No.’”
Monarez refuted Kennedy’s comments calling her “untrustworthy” during her opening statement Wednesday.
Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, a physician who represents Louisiana and chairs the powerful Senate health committee, said during his opening remarks Wednesday that lawmakers were looking to find “all the facts, not a version of the facts that fits a certain narrative agenda.”
“It may be impossible to learn who’s telling the truth, but this hearing is an initial step in trying to answer why the top leadership of the CDC was fired or resigned before they could be fired,” he said, adding, “Turmoil at the top of the nation’s top public health agency is not good for the health of the American people.”
Christina Santucci
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