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Former CDC Officials Take Aim at RFK Jr. During Senate Hearing

By Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D. | The Defender | September 17, 2025

The U.S. Senate hearing that began today as an investigation into the firing of the CDC director and the resignations of other key agency officials morphed quickly into a forum for accusing U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. of posing a threat to public health.

“Today should not be about me,” former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Susan Monarez, Ph.D., told senators. “Today should be about the future of trust in public health.”

Monarez testified that she was fired for “holding the line of scientific integrity.” Dr. Debra Houry, former chief medical officer of the CDC who resigned after Monarez’s firing, also testified.

“Trust and transparency have been broken” under Kennedy’s leadership, Houry told members of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP), which held the hearing.

She criticized Kennedy’s handling of the recent measles outbreak and the changes to COVID-19 vaccine recommendations.

The committee will hold another hearing in the future to allow Kennedy and current CDC officials to refute allegations made by Monarez and Houry, said Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), the committee chair. “I want President Trump to have the best CDC in our nation’s history,” he said.

According to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), minority chair, the hearing was really about Kennedy’s “dangerous war on science, public health and the truth itself.”

Sanders praised Monarez for standing up for the “scientific method” and refusing to “rubber-stamp” Kennedy’s “dangerous agenda.”

Monarez testified that “vaccines are not controversial because they work.”

She also recounted how the CDC was attacked by a gunman who, in her words, was “driven by vaccine distrust.”

Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) called out the agency for creating public distrust during the COVID-19 pandemic. “The CDC is the cause of vaccine hesitancy,” he said.

Sanders refuses to have Monarez, Houry sworn in

The hearing came as no surprise. The day Monarez was fired, Cassidy posted on X that the sudden departure of top CDC officials “will require oversight” by the committee.

Cassidy wanted Monarez and Houry to be sworn in before their testimony. However, Sanders — whose approval was needed as minority leader — refused, saying Kennedy wasn’t sworn in at a prior hearing.

When another senator challenged Sanders’ refusal, Cassidy pointed out that Kennedy would be sworn in for future hearings related to today’s testimony.

Sanders still refused.

Cassidy reminded the witnesses that it’s illegal to lie to senators, even without explicitly vowing to tell the truth. Yet throughout the hearing, several senators questioned whether Monarez and Houry were being honest.

A U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) spokesperson told The Defender that Monarez’s prepared remarks contain “factual inaccuracies and leave out important details,” adding:

“Here’s the reality: Susan Monarez was tasked with returning the CDC to its core mission after decades of bureaucratic inertia, politicized science and mission creep corroded its purpose and squandered public trust.

“Instead, she acted maliciously to undermine the President’s agenda and was fired as a result. Some of her biggest offenses include neglecting to implement President Trump’s executive orders, making policy decisions without the knowledge or consent of Secretary Kennedy or the White House, limiting badge access for Trump’s political appointees, and removing a Secretarial appointee without consulting anyone. When she refused to acknowledge her insubordination, President Trump fired her.”

Children’s Health Defense CEO Mary Holland said Monarez represented the CDC’s “old guard” and that her termination was “necessary and proper.” She said:

“Monarez is assiduously following the pharma-funded script to attempt to oust Kennedy as HHS Secretary. Yet the obvious reality is that the CDC has lost the trust of the nation and the world, and radical reform is absolutely required if the agency is to continue at all.”

Senators, Monarez dispute details surrounding her firing

Senators at the hearing attempted to clarify disputed details surrounding Monarez’s firing.

The White House confirmed on Aug. 27 that she was fired after Kennedy tried to force her resignation and she refused to leave. Shortly after, Monarez wrote in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal that she was fired because she “held the line and insisted on rigorous scientific review.”

She reiterated the claim in today’s hearing, saying Kennedy had given her a choice: accept the recommendations of the new Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and fire top CDC officials responsible for vaccine policy, or resign.

According to Kennedy, he fired her because she responded “no” when he asked her, “Are you a trustworthy person?”

Monarez said the conversation went differently. “He told me he couldn’t trust me,” she said. “I told him that if he could not trust me, he could fire me.”

Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) pressed Monarez on details of the conversation, saying it had been recorded. However, he reportedly backtracked on the claim. “If HHS has a recording, I ask them to release it,” Cassidy said.

Cassidy also asked for all documentation related to the conversation for the committee to review.

Houry testified that she resigned because Kennedy “censored CDC science, politicized its processes and stripped leaders of independence.”

Andrew G. Nixon, an HHS spokesman, told The New York Times that Kennedy “has insisted that decisions be evidence-based, open to scrutiny and free from the kind of closed-door processes that undermined confidence in the C.D.C. during the pandemic.”

Monarez evasive on COVID and Hep B vaccines

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) asked Monarez if the COVID-19 vaccine prevented transmission or reduced children’s risk of hospitalization or death.

She replied, “It can.”

Paul cited research contradicting Monarez’s answer. He pointed out that children who get the COVID-19 shot face a heightened risk of myocarditis, and the shot fails to lower their risk of hospitalization or death.

James Lyons-Weiler, Ph.D., criticized Monarez in a Substack post, saying she was unable to provide substantive answers to Paul’s questions.

Lyons-Weiler also noted that Monarez offered “no credible defense” when Paul asked why it was important for newborns to get the hepatitis B vaccine if their mother was hepatitis B negative.

The CDC’s vaccine advisory panel is expected to vote Thursday on certain childhood vaccine recommendations, including the hepatitis B (Hep B) vaccine.

Critics have long raised concerns about the safety and necessity of giving the vaccine to newborns, particularly those not at risk for the disease. Today, the Hep B vaccine contains at least 250 micrograms of aluminum, and aluminum exposure has been linked to autism.

Paul asked Monarez, “What is the medical, scientific reason and proof for giving a newborn a hepatitis B vaccine if the mom is Hep B negative?”

Monarez refused to answer the question.

Paul called out Monarez for evading questions about specific vaccines and hiding behind vague assertions that all vaccines are “safe and effective.”

He said the burden should be on the CDC and its staff to prove that the benefits of giving babies COVID-19 and Hep B vaccines outweigh the risks. “That’s what the debate ought to be about,” he said. “Not on whether all vaccines are good.”

Monarez repeatedly said that the CDC doesn’t “mandate” vaccines; the agency only makes “recommendations.”

While technically correct, her answer overlooks the reality that many states use the agency’s recommendations when mandating vaccines for school entry.

Monarez was first CDC director in 70 years without medical degree

In March, Trump nominated Monarez for director of the CDC, where she had served as acting director until her nomination.

She was the first CDC director confirmed under a law passed in 2023 that requires Senate confirmation for the position. She was also the first person, in more than 70 years, without a medical degree to serve in the role. She has a doctorate in microbiology and immunology.

Trump nominated Monarez after withdrawing the nomination of Dr. Dave Weldon, who reportedly failed to secure enough votes because of comments he made suggesting a possible link between autism and vaccines.

Monarez, a biosecurity veteran, was previously deputy director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), an agency within HHS created by the Biden administration to accelerate “high-risk, high-reward” biomedical research.

ARPA-H is modeled after the U.S. military’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency or DARPA. Monarez also previously held positions with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

During her confirmation hearing before the Senate committee, Monarez affirmed her belief that “vaccines save lives,” and pledged to prioritize vaccine availability. She said mRNA vaccines are “safe and with demonstrated efficacy,” and she said she was unaware of any confirmed scientific link between vaccines and autism.

In her WSJ op-ed about why she was fired, Monarez said:

“Those seeking to undermine vaccines use a familiar playbook: discredit research, weaken advisory committees, and use manipulated outcomes to unravel protections that generations of families have relied on to keep deadly diseases at bay.”

Mark Crispin Miller, Ph.D., professor of media studies at New York University, told The Defender that Monarez is playing an old trick called “accusation in the mirror,” in which a person accuses their enemy of doing what the person has been doing.

He said:

“The trick usually works because it’s so disorienting, and most people have a hard time believing that anybody as ‘respectable’ as Susan Monarez — a woman with a Ph.D., who worked at CDC — could be so utterly dishonest. The only way to fight it is to call it out immediately, loud and clear.”

Watch the hearing here.

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

September 18, 2025 - Posted by aletho | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | CDC, United States