WASHINGTON, Aug 28 (Reuters) - U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Thursday said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention needs to deliver on President Donald Trump’s ambitions, a day after the White House fired the health agency’s director and several top officials resigned.
Three of the officials were escorted from the CDC’s Atlanta headquarters campus on Thursday morning, according to four sources familiar with the situation.
The White House late on Wednesday said CDC Director Susan Monarez was fired because she “refused to resign despite informing HHS (Health and Human Services) leadership of her intent to do so,” adding that she was not “aligned with the president’s agenda of Making America Healthy Again.”
Monarez attorneys Mark S. Zaid and Abbe David Lowell rejected the White House statement, saying the firing notification was legally deficient and that she remains CDC director. Earlier on Wednesday, they said she was targeted for refusing to support “unscientific, reckless directives.”
The top officials who resigned, including CDC Chief Medical Officer Debra Houry, cited a rise in health misinformation especially on vaccines, attacks on science, the weaponization of public health, and attempts to cut the agency’s budget in their resignation letters, reviewed by Reuters.
