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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