00:00This is apropos. Well, she's one of at least three Senate-confirmed regulatory officials.
00:08The Trump administration has moved to fire in recent days, but her lawyers say she's going nowhere.
00:14After less than a month in the role, the White House says it's removed Susan Moneris from her position as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
00:23following clashes with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over his controversial vaccine policy.
00:31Monty Francis has the details.
00:33At the dawn of the genomics era...
00:35She was nominated by Donald Trump himself, but after less than a month on the job,
00:39the White House says that Susan Moneris has been fired as head of the CDC.
00:44In a statement, the administration explained that Moneris was not aligned with the president's agenda of making America healthy again.
00:51The nation's top health official, Robert F. Kennedy, would only say this about the firing during an appearance on Fox News.
00:58The 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.
01:07So if I'm confirmed as a CDC director...
01:10Moneris, who testified before the Senate in June, says she was pressured by Kennedy, a vaccine skeptic, to change the agency's vaccine policy.
01:19She initially refused to step down, and through her lawyer, she accused Kennedy of weaponizing public health for political gain
01:26and putting millions of American lives at risk.
01:29When CDC director Susan Moneris refused to rubber stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts,
01:37she chose protecting the public over serving a political agenda.
01:41For that reason, she has been targeted.
01:43As the nation's top health official, Kennedy has effectively done away with an advisory committee that recommends vaccines
01:50and revived a task force to scrutinize childhood vaccines, prompting concern from most health experts.
01:57In response to Moneris' firing, several other top officials at the CDC resigned, including the agency's chief medical officer.
02:05And all of this follows months of turmoil at the CDC.
02:10Its budget has been slashed, hundreds of employees terminated,
02:14and the agency is still reeling after a gunman fired hundreds of rounds at the CDC headquarters in Atlanta earlier this month,
02:21apparently upset about the effects he claims to have suffered as a result of a COVID vaccine.
02:27To discuss, let's bring in Lawrence Gostin, director of the WHO Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law.
02:34Lawrence, thanks for being with us on the programme this evening.
02:38As we say, she is one of at least three Senate-confirmed regulatory officials that Donald Trump has moved against in recent days.
02:46She hasn't even been in the job a month.
02:49In your view, why exactly is Susan Moneris being targeted?
02:55Well, you know, let's be clear why she's being targeted.
02:58It isn't because she's had any malfeasance or corruption.
03:05She's being targeted precisely because she's doing her job.
03:10She's relying on science and scientific evidence to make vaccine and other public health policy,
03:19which she is charged with doing.
03:22And what she's refusing to do is to be obedient to a political orthodoxy.
03:31There's no RFK or Trump science.
03:36There's only science.
03:38And there is no political agenda about science.
03:43There's only a desire to use the best possible evidence to keep Americans healthy and safe.
03:53That's what she did.
03:54That's not a fireable offence.
03:57And in terms of fireable offences and even the right to fire her,
04:02is it only Donald Trump rather than White House officials who have the power to remove a CDC director?
04:08That's what her lawyers are claiming.
04:09Yes, as a matter of law, that's true.
04:15For many decades, the Secretary for Health and Human Services had the constitutional power to fire the director of CDC.
04:26But recently, Congress passed a law requiring Senate confirmation for CDC director.
04:35She's the first one to ever be a Senate-confirmed nominee.
04:40And for that, you need the president.
04:43Now, the president has been conspicuously silent, eerily silent on this.
04:48But the White House has said that the president signed off on it.
04:52He does have the power.
04:53But Secretary Kennedy doesn't.
04:56But even if he does have the power, this is bad for the American population.
05:03I've worked with the CDC for over 40 years in Republican and Democratic administrations.
05:11And I've never seen anything like this, the undermining, the denigrating of career public servants and scientists and CDC leadership.
05:21This is a very dangerous moment for the United States.
05:26Yeah, and lawyers for the CDC director, they're saying this is all part of a systematic dismantling of public health institutions, silencing of experts and the dangerous politicization of science.
05:37Where is all of this headed?
05:39You know, I think it's headed in a very bad direction.
05:45You mentioned at the start of the show that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired all 12 members of the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
06:01These are the top scientists.
06:04And what he did was he replaced them with loyalists, yes men, and anti-vaccine skeptics.
06:14Now, if you think about it, that's exactly what he's going to do at CDC.
06:20He's going to replace Susan Menares and other CDC senior leadership and senior scientists with people that have blind fidelity to a political ideology, unmoored from science and public health.
06:39And that will cost lives in the United States, undoubtedly.
06:44And it could also have a big impact outside the United States as well.
06:50Lawrence, remind us, what other changes has the health secretary made when it comes to vaccine policies since taking office?
06:57And have those changes had any impact yet?
07:01Oh, it's been a systematic assault on vaccinations.
07:05This includes, as I mentioned, the firing of all senior advice, scientific advisors on vaccination and replacing them wholesale.
07:19Removing research for messenger RNA vaccines, which has saved millions of lives during COVID,
07:29but also could be used for cancer and other infectious diseases and future public health emergencies.
07:37He's tried to amplify and study the links between autism and measles vaccines, and no link exists, just stepping up hysteria.
07:51And he's also threatened to impose steep liability on vaccine makers, which will make them leave the field.
08:04I could go on and on, but this is literally a systematic assault on science, public health, and vaccinations in particular.
08:14And the CDC itself called vaccines the greatest public health achievement of the 20th century.
08:21And all of us in science agree.
08:24And it's not long, of course, since a gunman attacked the CDC's Atlanta headquarters.
08:28It's also seen staff numbers cut.
08:30It's seen funding cut.
08:32How concerned are people there at the moment about what the future is for the centre?
08:39You know, I've been in touch with my friends at CDC.
08:43I've never seen them with such low morale, so dispirited, feeling so alone and isolated.
08:54And even they feel like they're distrusted and almost disliked by the administration and by the general public because they've fomented distrust against them.
09:09Now, I'm not going to say that Secretary Kennedy is responsible for the shooting at the CDC headquarters, but I do think there's a direct line between all of the venom that he spewed out against scientists, public health officials, and CDC in particular, and what happened in Atlanta.
09:31And we're the most dangerous moment that I've seen for science in America.
09:38You know, there's a reason why countries around the world, including in Europe, call their public agencies the CDC because they're the gold standard in science and public health.
09:51And when the next pandemic hits, we'll knock on the CDC's door for help and no one will be there.
09:59And, Lawrence, just finally, how far do you think Donald Trump will go in rest and control over agencies in the U.S.
10:05that have traditionally been independent of presidential politics, this all coming ahead of what's shaping up to be a legal showdown with Lisa Cook at the Federal Reserve?
10:16Yeah, you know, it's becoming really clear what Donald Trump is doing.
10:24He's doing everything that he can to undermine the federal workforce, federal agencies, experts in economics, public health, science, environmental protection, and you name it.
10:40And what's happening is, is he'll do whatever he wants, whether it's constitutional or not, unless and until somebody stops him.
10:50And we have a completely compliant Congress that will do nothing to stop him, even though he's usurping their powers.
10:58And we have a very compliant Supreme Court that's stacked with hyper-conservatives that seem to think that their job is to defend the president, including giving him immunity for whatever he does.
11:15So, he will keep doing it until he's stopped, and he has to be stopped for the sake of American health, security, integrity, and our reputation all around the world.
11:31Lawrence, we'll have to leave it on that.
11:32I don't recognize the America that I see right now.
11:35We'll have to leave it on that note, Lawrence.
11:37Thanks so much for being with us on the program this evening.
11:41That is Lawrence Guston, Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre on National and Global Health Law.
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