Members of the Senate’s healthcare committee are presenting a unified face amid the chaos, and bipartisan fury is building over the events at the CDC.
Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who was ranking member of the Senate’s Healthcare, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, and Senator Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who chairs the committee, both thoroughly investigated the problems caused by the dismissal of CDC Director Susan Monarez, which led to a series of resignations from the department.
Less than thirty days following her confirmation by the Senate, Monarez was unceremoniously let go from her post by the HHS. It appeared that her differences with HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a vaccine skeptic, were the root cause of her departure, an allegation that her attorneys refuted.
During Kennedy’s confirmation hearing earlier this year, Cassidy cast the crucial vote.
Her attorneys have maintained that Monarez has not resigned or been dismissed, and that she has not even received word of her departure from the president, therefore she continues to deny being removed from her position.
Dr. Daniel Jernigan, director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases; Demetre Daskalakis, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases; Chief Medical Officer Debra Houry; and Jennifer Layden, director of public health data, science, and technology, were among the high-ranking CDC officials who resigned after hearing of her dismissal.
In light of their resignations, Cassidy insisted that the September meeting of the federal government’s vaccine advisory council, which had been reconstituted with Kennedy appointees following his recent dismissal of the original members, be rescheduled.
An action that goes against the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) objective of Kennedy and President Trump, Cassidy has twice this year demanded that the panel cease its meeting.
Cassidy said that there had been “serious allegations made about the meeting agenda, membership, and lack of scientific process being followed for the now announced September [Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices] meeting.”
“These decisions directly impact children’s health and the meeting should not occur until significant oversight has been conducted,” added Cassidy. “If the meeting proceeds, any recommendations made should be rejected as lacking legitimacy given the seriousness of the allegations and the current turmoil in CDC leadership.”
The reason for Daskalakis’ resignation was posted on X, where he stated that he could not serve in an atmosphere that uses the CDC to create policies and materials that do not represent scientific truth and are intended to harm rather than help the public’s health.
Sanders, meantime, has called for a probe of Trump’s decision to terminate Monarez by Congress.
“We need leaders at the CDC and HHS who are committed to improving public health and have the courage to stand up for science, not officials who have a history of spreading bogus conspiracy theories and disinformation,” the senator stated.