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Wednesday’s hearing before the Senate health committee promises to be a referendum on the health secretary’s leadership and expose a rocky time at the nation’s public health agency.
Sept. 17, 2025, 5:04 a.m. ET
Susan Monarez, the former head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who was ousted by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. amid a dispute over vaccine policy, will tell her story during a Senate hearing on Wednesday that promises to be a referendum on Mr. Kennedy’s leadership.
Dr. Monarez will appear before the Senate health committee along with Dr. Deb Houry, the C.D.C.’s former chief medical officer, one of three top agency officials who quit after concluding they could no longer work for Mr. Kennedy.
Wednesday’s hearing will expose a rocky time at the nation’s public health agency, which long has been a target of Mr. Kennedy. At a recent Senate hearing, he defended his shake-up of the agency, saying: “We are the sickest country in the world. That’s why we have to fire people at C.D.C. They did not do their job. This was their job to keep us healthy. “
In prepared testimony, Dr. Monarez and Dr. Houry accused Mr. Kennedy of disregarding science and endangering Americans’ health.
The hearing also comes on the eve of a two-day meeting of the C.D.C.’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or A.C.I.P — an expert panel at the heart of Dr. Monarez’s conflict with Mr. Kennedy. Earlier this year, Mr. Kennedy fired all 17 of the committee’s members and replaced them with some who share his skepticism of vaccines.
In her prepared testimony, Dr. Monarez said she lost her job for “holding the line on scientific integrity” after refusing Mr. Kennedy’s demands to fire top C.D.C. vaccine officials and accept without question the recommendation of the newly reconstituted immunization advisory committee.
She said she told Mr. Kennedy that “if he believed he could not trust me, he could fire me.” Dr. Houry said Mr. Kennedy “repeatedly censored C.D.C. science, politicized our processes and stripped agency leaders of the ability to protect the health of the American people.”
A spokesman for Mr. Kennedy, Andrew Nixon, disputed their accounts. He said Dr. Monarez was fired because she “acted maliciously to undermine the president’s agenda” and that the health secretary “is focused on restoring public trust in the C.D.C. by ensuring transparency, accountability, and diverse scientific input.”
At the recent Senate hearing in which Mr. Kennedy defended the his C.D.C. shake-up, he said that he had ousted Dr. Monarez because she responded “no” when he asked her whether she was “a trustworthy person.”
Wednesday’s hearing will also put a spotlight on Senator Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana and chairman of the Senate health committee, who has lately become more aggressive in challenging Mr. Kennedy on vaccine policy — even as he faces a difficult primary challenge at home.
Dr. Monarez, an infectious disease researcher and longtime government scientist, was President Trump’s second pick for C.D.C. director. The first, Dr. David Weldon, a former Florida congressman who like Mr. Kennedy has long been critical of the agency, saw his nomination withdrawn by the White House at the last minute after Senate Republicans concluded that they lacked the votes to confirm him.
Dr. Monarez was the acting C.D.C. director at the outset of the Trump administration. When she was nominated for director, Mr. Kennedy praised her, saying she had “impeccable scientific credentials.”
Her removal, less than a month after she was confirmed by the Senate, stunned public health leaders and people in Washington. It also drew criticism of Mr. Kennedy on Capitol Hill, including from two of Mr. Cassidy’s Republican colleagues: Senators Thom Tillis of North Carolina and John Barrasso of Wyoming.
According to Dr. Monarez’s prepared testimony, her relationship with Mr. Kennedy began to sour early last month, just days after her confirmation on July 29.
On Aug. 2, she wrote, she learned from news reports that experts serving as liaisons to the vaccine advisory committee — including those from major medical societies — had been removed from its working groups. Then she heard concerns that the panel might alter the childhood vaccine schedule at its next meeting “potentially without credible supporting data.” That meeting is set for this Thursday and Friday in Atlanta.
On Aug. 8, a gunman opened fire on the C.D.C. headquarters in Atlanta, killing a police officer. On Aug. 19, Dr. Monarez said, she “received a directive” from Mr. Kennedy’s office instructing her that she needed approval from the president’s political appointees before making policy and personnel decisions.
Two days later, she said, she was told to return to Washington from Atlanta immediately, which would have meant missing the police officer’s memorial. That, she said, was “something I was not willing to do.”
On the morning of Aug. 25, back in Washington, Dr. Monarez said, Mr. Kennedy demanded that she commit in advance to approving every recommendation by the advisory panel “regardless of the scientific evidence.” He also directed her to “dismiss career officials responsible for vaccine policy without cause,” she said.
She refused. Two days later, the White House announced that it had fired her.
Sheryl Gay Stolberg covers health policy for The Times from Washington. A former congressional and White House correspondent, she focuses on the intersection of health policy and politics.
