Dr. Susan Monarez, who was sworn in as director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on July 31, is being ousted, according to three sources familiar with the situation who spoke on the condition that they not be named because they were not authorized to share the information.
Her departure was quickly followed by the resignation of of several high-level veteran agency officials, leaving the CDC leaderless at a perilous time.
Morale, which was already low after deep staff cuts this spring, plummeted after a gunman opened fire on the agency’s main campus in Atlanta on August 8, pocking the buildings with hundreds of bullet holes and killing DeKalb County Police Officer David Rose. Shortly afterward, a further 600 employees got official termination notices.
The US Department of Health and Human Services said in a post on X on Wednesday, “Susan Monarez is no longer director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We thank her for her dedicated service to the American people. [HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.] has full confidence in his team at @CDCgov who will continue to be vigilant in protecting Americans against infectious diseases at home and abroad.”
Monarez’s attorneys, Mark Zaid and Abbe Lowell, said in a statement Wednesday that “Dr. Monarez has neither resigned nor received notification from the White House that she has been fired, and as a person of integrity and devoted to science, she will not resign.”
