Dr. Susan Monarez painted a picture of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.‘s oversight of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday, testifying to a Senate committee that the health secretary pushes his preferred policies “regardless of the scientific evidence.”
Kennedy fired Monarez from her role as director of the CDC in late August. The move came after she refused to comply with Kennedy’s vaccine policies, citing ethical and scientific concerns with the secretary’s actions since his confirmation in February.
Testifying before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), Monarez said demands Kennedy made of her were “inconsistent with my oath of office and the ethics required of a public official.”
Monarez said she was told to approve all recommendations from the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. In June, Kennedy dismissed the members of the committee, replacing them with vaccine skeptics. According to Monarez, she was directed to “dismiss career officials responsible for vaccine policy, without cause.”
“He said if I was unwilling to do both, I should resign,” she said. “I responded that I could not pre-approve recommendations without reviewing the evidence, and I had no basis to fire scientific experts.”
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Monarez reported to the committee that she and Kennedy “got into an exchange” over her need to see scientific evidence to change the recommended childhood vaccine schedule, which made him “very upset.”
“He responded that there was no science or evidence associated with the childhood vaccine schedule,” Monarez said.
Monarez also detailed Kennedy’s “disparaging” remarks about the CDC and its employees, calling them “horrible people.”
“He said that CDC employees were killing children and they don’t care,” Monarez said. “He said that CDC employees were bought by the pharmaceutical industry. He said the CDC forced people to wear masks and social distance like a dictatorship.”
Watch the hearing below via YouTube:
