Susan Monarez, the former director of the CDC, who stepped down last month after resisting changes to vaccine policy demanded by Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, will testify before Congress next week.
Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said in a statement on Tuesday that his panel will hold a hearing on September 17 to examine the state of the HHS under Kennedy’s leadership.
Debra Houry, former chief medical officer of the CDC and one of four top officials to follow Monarez out of the door in a show of solidarity, will also give evidence.
The hearing will be entitled, “Restoring Trust Through Radical Transparency: Reviewing Recent Events at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Implications for Children’s Health.”
Trump officials will be invited to respond to the testimony Monarez offers at a future hearing, Cassidy said.
“To protect children’s health, Americans need to know what has happened and is happening at the CDC. They need to be reassured that their child’s health is given priority,” he added said in a statement Tuesday evening. “Radical transparency is the only way to do that.”
Monarez left her post on August 27, having only been sworn in on July 29, amid growing tensions over vaccines and public health directives.
Donald Trump’s administration has made sweeping changes to vaccine policies since coming to power, including withdrawing federal recommendations for Covid-19 shots for pregnant women and healthy children in May.
It also fired all members of the CDC’s expert vaccine advisory panel in June, replacing its lineup with advisers hand-picked by Kennedy, some of whom are fellow anti-vaccine activists.
Over 1,000 past and current HHS employees have called on the secretary to resign over the fallout with Monarez, accusing him of disregarding decades of lifesaving science, reversing medical progress and “compromising the health of the nation.”
Trump has so far stood by the man he told to “go wild” on American healthcare after winning last year’s presidential race, brushing aside congressional pressure, public health concerns about Kennedy’s actions and the political risks of changing vaccine policies nationwide.
“He’s a very good person... and he means very well, and he’s got some little different ideas,” the president said in defense of his health secretary last week after his contentious appearance before the Senate Finance Committee at which he said Monarez was “untrustworthy,” having called her “unimpeachable” just weeks earlier.
Lawyers for the ousted official said Kennedy’s characterization of her was “false, and at times, patently ridiculous.” They added that she had been removed because she “refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts” and accused the secretary of “weaponizing public health for political gain.”
Monarez alleged in a Wall Street Journal op-ed last week, published to coincide with Kennedy’s appearance on Capitol Hill, that the secretary had pressured her to “preapprove the recommendations of a vaccine advisory panel newly filled with people who have publicly expressed antivaccine rhetoric.”
Kennedy has said his mission is “restore” the CDC’s focus on infectious disease and “rebuild trust through transparency and competence.”
Additional reporting by agencies.
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