Bipartisan anger is brewing over the drama that unfolded at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), with the top members of the Senate’s healthcare panel forming a united front in the midst of the turmoil.
Senate Healthcare, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chair Bill Cassidy, R-La., and the panel’s ranking member, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., dove head first into the issues stemming from the firing of CDC Director Susan Monarez, which spurred a string of departures from the agency.
Monarez was abruptly fired from her position by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), less than a month after being confirmed by the Senate. Her removal, which her lawyers rejected, appeared to stem from disagreements over vaccines with HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a vaccine skeptic.
Cassidy was the deciding vote during Kennedy’s confirmation hearing earlier this year.
Monarez has since refused to leave the post, with her lawyers arguing that she had neither resigned nor been fired and had not received notification from the president of her removal.
Following news of her ouster, a string of top officials at the CDC announced their resignations, too, including National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Daniel Jernigan, Chief Medical Officer Debra Houry, National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases Director Demetre Daskalakis and Director of Public Health Data, Science, Technology Jennifer Layden.
In response to their resignations, Cassidy demanded that the federal government’s vaccine advisory panel, which was filled with Kennedy’s handpicked replacements after he recently booted the original panel members, postpone its scheduled meeting in September.
His demand marks the second time this year that Cassidy called on the panel to halt its meeting, a move that directly bucks Kennedy’s and President Donald Trump’s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) agenda.
Cassidy argued Thursday that there were ‘serious allegations made about the meeting agenda, membership, and lack of scientific process being followed for the now announced September [Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices] meeting.’
‘These decisions directly impact children’s health, and the meeting should not occur until significant oversight has been conducted,’ Cassidy said. ‘If the meeting proceeds, any recommendations made should be rejected as lacking legitimacy given the seriousness of the allegations and the current turmoil in CDC leadership.’
Daskalakis posted his reason for resigning on X, where he charged that he was ‘unable to serve in an environment that treats CDC as a tool to generate policies and materials that do not reflect scientific reality and are designed to hurt rather than to improve the public’s health.’
Meanwhile, Sanders demanded a congressional investigation be opened into the Trump administration’s decision to fire Monarez.
‘We need leaders at the CDC and HHS who are committed to improving public health and have the courage to stand up for science, not officials who have a history of spreading bogus conspiracy theories and disinformation,’ Sanders said Thursday.
HHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story.