NEW YORK (AP) — The director of the nation’s top public health agency is out after less than one month in the job, U.S. officials announced 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,” the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services wrote on social media.
HHS officials did not explain why Monarez is no longer with the agency.
Before the department’s announcement, she told The Associated Press: “I can’t comment.”
Monarez, 50, was the agency’s 21st director and the first to pass through Senate confirmation following a 2023 law. She was named acting director in January and then tapped as the nominee in March after Trump abruptly withdrew his first choice, David Weldon.
She was sworn in on July 31 — less than a month ago, making her the shortest-serving CDC director in the history of the 79-year-old agency.
Her short time at CDC was tumultuous. On Aug. 8, at the end of her first full week on the job, a Georgia man opened fire from a spot at a pharmacy across the street from CDC’s main entrance. The 30-year-old man blamed the COVID-19 vaccine for making him depressed and suicidal. He killed a police officer and fired more than 180 shots into CDC buildings before killing himself.
No one at CDC was injured, but it shell-shocked a staff that already had low morale from other recent changes.
The Atlanta-based federal agency was initially founded to prevent the spread of malaria in the U.S. Its mission was later expanded, and it gradually became a global leader on infectious and chronic diseases and a go-to source of health information.
This year it’s been hit by widespread staff cuts, resignations of key officials and heated controversy over long-standing CDC vaccine policies upended by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
During her Senate confirmation process, Monarez told senators that she values vaccines, public health interventions and rigorous scientific evidence. But she largely dodged questions about whether those positions put her at odds with Kennedy, a longtime vaccine skeptic who has criticized and sought to dismantle some of the agency’s previous protocols and decisions.
The Washington Post first reported she was ousted, citing unnamed sources within the Trump administration.
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
