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In a high-profile development this week, Susan Monarez was forced out as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, just weeks after being confirmed by the Senate in a rare, highly partisan vote.

The initial reports of her ouster came from The Washington Post, which cited several officials in the Trump administration, but when Ars Technica reached out to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), they pointed to an announcement in an X post on their official account. “Susan Monarez is no longer director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,” the account wrote. “We thank her for her dedicated service to the American people. @SecKennedy has full confidence in his team at @CDCgov, who will continue to be vigilant in protecting Americans against infectious diseases at home and abroad.”

In that post, however, the HHS did not explain the circumstances surrounding Monarez’s removal. According to The Washington Post, U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has openly pushed an anti-vaccine agenda in the past, had confronted Monarez several times about her reluctance to approve COVID-19 vaccines and vaccine mandates. Kennedy wanted Monarez to reverse her approval of the vaccines, but she refused to do so before consulting with the CDC’s vaccine advisory boards. He then asked her to resign for “failure to support the President’s agenda,” according to The Post.

Monarez, in turn, did not submit a resignation letter of her own, but instead reached out to Senator Bill Cassidy (R-La.) for help. Cassidy had been a key figure in Kennedy’s Senate confirmation process this year, helping him secure a position with assurances that he would not block appointments or stifle agency scientists. Kennedy reportedly lashed out when Cassidy pushed back, and Monarez was then told she had to either resign or be fired, according to officials.

Lawyers for Monarez, Mark Zaid, and Abbe Lowell also released a statement on social media that disputed the official account of events. “Ms. Monarez has not resigned and has not been officially notified by the White House that she has been terminated,” they said. “Her ouster came after she refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts. She chose protecting the public over serving a political agenda.” Zaid also confirmed to Ars Technica that as of 8:15 p.m. ET on August 27, Monarez had not received a formal notice of termination.

CDC A Hotbed of Controversy

Monarez had been confirmed for the post in late July after a hard-fought vote of 51–47 along party lines. She was the first director of the CDC to be required to undergo Senate confirmation, after a law passed by Congress in 2022 mandated it. Kennedy himself presided over her swearing-in ceremony, where he praised her “unimpeachable scientific credentials,” citing her as a way to restore the CDC’s credibility.

Monarez had held a number of positions at the CDC and related agencies over the years, giving her résumé a depth that had been lacking in previous CDC directors. She holds a PhD in microbiology and immunology from Emory University. She had also served as deputy director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), an agency that is tasked with coordinating scientific research under the Biden administration. She had also previously worked at the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), the Department of Homeland Security, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and the National Security Council. She was even the CDC acting director briefly this year, before stepping down upon Trump’s nomination of her for the official position.

Her confirmation also received praise from other public health leaders. Jennifer Nuzzo, a senior scholar at the Brown University School of Public Health, called Monarez a “loyal, hardworking civil servant who leads with evidence and pragmatism.” Georges Benjamin, head of the American Public Health Association, also praised Monarez for her work as a “strong researcher and capable manager.”

But all that history has not protected her from the CDC’s ongoing turmoil. The CDC has seen a rash of layoffs and buyouts in recent months, with many hundreds of staff members leaving voluntarily or involuntarily, and many of the agency’s programs being either reduced or heavily curtailed. Kennedy himself has made repeated inflammatory statements, calling COVID-19 vaccines “the deadliest vaccine ever made,” for example, or claiming that the CDC was a “cesspool of corruption.”

The CDC was also the scene of a shooting on August 8, when a gunman radicalized by vaccine misinformation opened fire at the agency’s main campus in Atlanta. He fired off nearly 500 rounds, with about 200 of those shots landing in six CDC buildings. One local police officer was killed, and the scene was one of panicked CDC staff running from the building. The shooter had complained of vaccine injuries and a failing immune system.

Monarez’s reported ouster has only compounded the agency’s crisis. Stat News has confirmed three top CDC officials have since resigned, including Daniel Jernigan, director of the National Center for Emerging Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, the CDC’s Chief Medical Officer Deb Houry, and Demetre Daskalakis, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

In his resignation post, Daskalakis said, “I am not able to serve in this role any longer because of the ongoing weaponization of public health,” while Houry made a point of emphasizing that science should “never be censored or subject to political interpretations.”

Politico also reported earlier on August 8 that Jennifer Layden, director of the Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance, and Technology, had also resigned her position.

The CDC’s predicament has been seen by many in public health as a nadir, with an agency built on decades of research into evidence-based public health facing a high turnover of leadership and increasing politicization at a time of crisis.