WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Senate’s health panel will need to act following the firing of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Susan Monarez, its chairman said after the White House announced her termination less than one month after she took her post.
“These high profile departures will require oversight by the HELP Committee,” U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Chairman Bill Cassidy said in a post on X late Wednesday as CDC Chief Medical Officer Debra Houry and National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases Director Demetre Daskalakis also announced their resignations.
The White House earlier on Wednesday said that Monarez had been fired because she “refused to resign despite informing HHS leadership of her intent to do so,” adding that she was not “aligned with the President’s agenda of Making America Healthy Again.”
Monarez’s attorneys, Mark S. Zaid and Abbe David Lowell, initially said she had not resigned or been fired and accused Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. of targeting her for refusing to support “unscientific directives” and dismiss health experts. Zaid later said they had been notified of the firing by the White House but rejected it as illegal, writing on X: “As a presidential appointee, Senate-confirmed officer, only the president himself can fire her.”
The leadership upheaval comes as Kennedy has made sweeping changes to vaccine policies since taking office this year, including firing the CDC’s expert vaccine advisory panel members and replacing them with fellow anti-vaccine activists and other hand-picked advisers.
On Wednesday, U.S. health regulators narrowed approval for updated COVID-19 vaccines. Kennedy previously withdrew federal recommendations for COVID shots for pregnant women and healthy children.
Representatives for Cassidy could not be immediately reached for comment on what oversight the committee was planning.
The Republican, a doctor from Louisiana, had expressed wariness about Kennedy’s anti-vaccine views before clearing the path for him to become the nation’s top health official.
(Reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama )
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