Former CDC Director Susan Monarez Testifies About Clashes With RFK Jr. in Senate Hearing

TIME

Susan Monarez, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), addressed the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions on Wednesday to testify on the recent turmoil at the public health agency. Monarez told Senators that before she was fired last month, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. demanded two things of her that she said were "inconsistent with [her] oath of office."

Transcript

00:00This hearing is not just about determining why Dr. Moneros was fired

00:04and why Dr. Howery and other scientists at the CDC resigned.

00:09The issue is deeper than that.

00:12It is about Secretary Kennedy's dangerous war on science, public health, and the truth itself.

00:21Unacceptably, we now have an HHS secretary who does not believe in established science

00:28and who listens to conspiracy theorists and ideologues rather than doctors and medical professionals.

00:36It is absurd to have to say this in the year 2025, but vaccines are safe and effective.

00:47Today should not be about me.

00:51Today should be about the future of trust in public health.

00:56On the morning of August 25th, Secretary Kennedy demanded two things of me

01:01that were inconsistent with my oath of office and the ethics required of a public official.

01:09He directed me to commit in advance to approving every ACIP recommendation,

01:16regardless of the scientific evidence.

01:19He also directed me to dismiss career officials responsible for vaccine policy without cause.

01:30He said if I was unwilling to do both, I should resign.

01:35I responded that I could not pre-approve recommendations without reviewing the evidence,

01:39and I had no basis to fire scientific experts.

01:45He told me he had already spoken with the White House several times about having me removed.

01:51Vaccine policy must be guided by credible data, not predetermined outcomes.

01:56As I wrote in my September 4th Wall Street Journal op-ed, I agree with President Trump.

02:00We should not hesitate to ask for proof about our vaccines,

02:04and I also agree with his most recent comments that vaccines are not controversial because they work.

02:10Demanding evidence is exactly what I was doing when I insisted CDC recommendations be based on credible science.

02:17I could have stayed silent, agreed to the demands, and no one would have known.

02:23What the public would have seen were scientists dismissed without cause,

02:27and vaccine protections quietly eroded, all under the authority of a Senate-confirmed director with unimpeachable credentials.

02:36I could have kept the office, the title, but I would have lost the one thing that cannot be replaced, my integrity.

02:44Some may question my motives or mischaracterize my words that that is part of public life,

02:49but I am not here as a politician.

02:51I am here as a scientist, a public servant, and a parent committed to protecting the health of future generations.

02:58Instead of promoting vaccines, the Secretary spread misinformation and promoted unproven treatments.

03:06CDC's labs and data systems are our nation's first line of defense against pandemics and biothreats,

03:12biothreats, but those defenses are being weakened.

03:15Under the Secretary, global flu sample submissions have dropped by 60 percent,

03:21and COVID samples by 70 percent, leaving us with far less visibility into what's coming.

03:27Trust and transparency have been broken.

03:30Here again, the problem is not too much science, but too little.

03:34I first learned that the Secretary had changed our CDC COVID vaccine guidance on an ex-social media post.

03:43CDC scientists have still not seen the scientific data or justification for this change.

03:48That is not gold standard science.

03:51What keeps you up at night?

03:52What keeps you both up at night, very concisely?

03:55The next outbreak, and I don't believe that we'll be prepared.

03:59I'm concerned about the future of CDC and public health in our country,

04:02given what I have seen, if we continue down this path,

04:05we are not prepared, not just for pandemics, but for preventing chronic health disease,

04:10and we're going to see kids dying of vaccine-preventable diseases.

04:13You have to be unhinged to take a gun and fire it into a medical building,

04:18but these conspiracy theories about vaccines and about the people who are recommending vaccines,

04:24I fear they come with consequences.

04:26Do you fear for the safety of the CDC and the medical personnel if these beliefs about the CDC

04:36actually recommending things that hurt people continue to become mainstream?

04:40I do worry about that.

04:42I myself was subject to threats, and I am very concerned that the further promulgation of misleading information

04:50will undermine not just the safety and health of our children,

04:55but it will also exacerbate some of these tensions,

04:58the willingness to commit harm if someone is affronted by a belief that the people like us

05:11that are trying to help them are actually not trying to help them.

05:14Each bullet was meant for a person, and each of my staff were very traumatized afterwards.

05:22I had staff that were covering their kids in the daycare parking lot.

05:26There were people that were out at the rideshare as bullets were passing over their head.

05:31I have many that won't speak about vaccines now and have removed their names off of papers.

05:36They don't wish to present publicly anymore because they feel they were personally targeted because of misinformation.

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