CDC Director Susan Monarez Removed From Post
She spent less than a month on the job after clashing with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Updated Aug. 27, 2025 The Wall Street Journal
Monarez was nominated in March and was the first CDC director in 70 years without a medical degree.
- CDC Director Susan Monarez was pushed out of her job, according to a senior Trump administration official.
Susan Monarez, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has been pushed out of the job, a senior Trump administration official said Wednesday.
Monarez, who led the agency for less than a month, clashed with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and members of his staff, the official said. President Trump had nominated her to lead the CDC in March after dropping his first pick. Previously the agency’s acting director, Monarez was the first CDC head without a medical degree in more than 70 years.
Three senior CDC leaders, including Dr. Debra Houry, the agency’s chief medical officer, submitted their resignations Wednesday, according to emails viewed by The Wall Street Journal.
The Department of Health and Human Services confirmed Monarez was no longer CDC director and said Kennedy had full confidence in his team at the agency.
The Washington Post reported the news of Monarez’s ouster earlier.
The CDC is a division of HHS, which is overseen by Kennedy, a vaccine skeptic. A major source of disagreement between Monarez and Kennedy was over the CDC’s guidance on vaccines, according to the administration official. The agency issues recommendations on what vaccines adults and children should take.
The Senate confirmed Monarez as CDC director at the end of July. About a week after her swearing in, a gunman who authorities said had been critical of the Covid-19 vaccine opened fire outside the CDC’s Atlanta campus, killing a police officer and striking six of the agency’s buildings. The shooting marked a devastating blow to morale following a swath of layoffs across the agency earlier this year, according to current and former employees.
Hundreds of current and former employees at the CDC and other federal health agencies said the attack came as Americans’ distrust of public health institutions grows and federal leaders politicize and tout health misinformation, according to a letter they wrote to Kennedy and members of Congress last week.
“When the federal workforce is not safe, America is not safe,” they wrote in the letter. “Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is complicit in dismantling America’s public health infrastructure and endangering the nation’s health by repeatedly spreading inaccurate health information.”
Many employees at the agency in Atlanta have been working remotely in the weeks since the shooting.
Monarez has a Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and did postdoctoral research at Stanford University. She was previously deputy director at the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, known as ARPA-H, a government agency working to develop healthcare products on a faster timeline.
The White House withdrew Trump’s first choice for CDC director, former congressman Dr. Dave Weldon, after senators worried he wasn’t qualified.
Houry, one of the senior CDC leaders who submitted her resignation, wrote in a note to colleagues that vaccines save lives and “the overstating of risks and the rise of misinformation have cost lives.” She cited the recent attack on the agency’s headquarters and the three-decade high in U.S. measles cases, which has led to three deaths.
“For the good of the nation and the world, the science at CDC should never be censored or subject to political pauses or interpretations,” she wrote, according to the email obtained by the Journal.
“I am committed to protecting the public’s health, but the ongoing changes prevent me from continuing in my job as a leader of the agency,” she added.
Demetre Daskalakis, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, also submitted his resignation.
“I am not able to serve in this role any longer because of the ongoing weaponizing of public health,” he wrote in an email.
Write to Alyssa Lukpat at alyssa.lukpat@wsj.com, Josh Dawsey at Joshua.Dawsey@WSJ.com and Jennifer Calfas at jennifer.calfas@wsj.com
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Appeared in the August 28, 2025, print edition as 'CDC Director Is Ousted From Post'.
CDC Director Susan Monarez was pushed out of her job, according to a senior Trump administration official.
Monarez clashed with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his staff, the official stated.