US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr on Thursday said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) needs to deliver on president Donald Trump’s ambitions, a day after the White House fired the health agency’s director and several top officials resigned.
Three of the officials were escorted from the CDC’s Atlanta headquarters campus on Thursday morning, according to four sources familiar with the situation.
The White House late on Wednesday said CDC director Susan Monarez was fired because she “refused to resign despite informing HHS [Health and Human Services] leadership of her intent to do so”, adding that she was not “aligned with the president’s agenda of Making America Healthy Again”.
Ms Monarez’s attorneys rejected the White House statement, saying the firing notification was legally deficient and that she remains CDC director. Earlier on Wednesday, they said she was targeted for refusing to support “unscientific, reckless directives”.
READ MORE
The top officials who resigned, including CDC chief medical officer Debra Houry, cited a rise in health misinformation, especially on vaccines, attacks on science, the weaponisation of public health, and attempts to cut the agency’s budget in their resignation letters, reviewed by Reuters.
The leadership upheaval at the CDC comes as Mr Kennedy has made sweeping changes to vaccine policies since taking office this year, including firing its expert vaccine advisory panel members and replacing them with fellow anti-vaccine activists and other handpicked advisers.
Since taking office in January, Mr Trump has wrested control over US government agencies that for years had taken pride in their independence from presidential politics as they oversee such matters as elections, stock markets and labour unrest.
Mr Kennedy declined to comment during an interview on Thursday on the specifics of the departure of Ms Monarez and four other top CDC officials.
“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 any more,” he told Fox News.
“We need strong leadership that will go in there, and that will be able to execute on president Trump’s broad ambitions for this agency,” he added.
In addition to its role in protecting the health of the US population, the CDC is a global leader in detecting and responding to infectious disease outbreaks and played a significant role in eradicating smallpox, reducing the global incidence of polio, and controlling HIV/Aids.
The agency has been heavily criticised in recent months for dropping its recommendation that pregnant women be vaccinated against Covid-19 and for narrowing its backing of the shots for children with health complications. On Wednesday, the FDA gave a narrowed approval to the updated Covid vaccines rolling out soon.
Ms Monarez is one of at least three Senate-confirmed regulatory officials Mr Trump has moved to fire in the last three days. The others are Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook and surface transportation board member Robert Primus.
Members of Mr Trump’s administration subscribe to a legal theory that the president enjoys complete authority over the executive branch, and his administration has tested such views by asserting control over agencies and making decisions to cut or withhold funding approved by Congress.
– Reuters
