By A Bloomberg editorial published Tuesday criticized Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for ousting the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), saying his leadership would make it difficult for any serious scientist to follow her.
Kennedy pushed CDC Director Susan Monarez out of her job two weeks ago, a move followed by other resignations of senior CDC officials.
“Monarez’s departure from the CDC highlights a dilemma that any successor will face: Under Kennedy, no serious scientist can hold the job,” Bloomberg’s editorial board wrote. “The risk this vacuum of expertise could pose to Americans’ health and safety is significant.”
Kennedy faced tough questions from lawmakers in both parties in his actions during a contentious Senate hearing last week. GOP Sens. Thom Tillis (N.C.), Bill Cassidy (La.) and John Barrasso (Wy.) all pressed Kennedy on vaccines and a host of other issues.
“I support vaccines. I’m a doctor. Vaccines work,” Barrasso, the Senate’s No. 2-ranking Republican leader, said during the hearing.
“Secretary Kennedy, in your confirmation hearings, you promised to uphold the highest standards for vaccines,” he said. “Since then, I’ve grown deeply concerned.”
Monarez’s attorneys, Mark Zaid and Abbe Lowell, said Monarez had a conflict with Kennedy because she would not “rubber-stamp” unscientific policies or fire health experts.
“When CDC Director Susan Monarez refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts she chose protecting the public over serving a political agenda. For that, she has been targeted,” Zaid and Lowell said.
In her own op-ed in the Wall Street Journal last week, Monarez said that on August 25 — three days before she was ousted — she refused to preapprove the recommendations of a vaccine advisory panel that Kennedy had stacked with loyalists.
“Public health shouldn’t be partisan,” Monarez added. “Vaccines have saved millions of lives under administrations of both parties. Parents deserve a CDC they can trust to put children above politics, evidence above ideology and facts above fear.
Monarez’s removal is not the only upheaval at the CDC. In March, five high-level staffers retired from the agency, and last month, roughly 600 employees were laid off.
The Bloomberg editorial criticized Kennedy’s views on vaccines and the unrest within the CDC.
“Monarez’s departure itself isn’t a crisis. More troubling is the exodus of top-level experts behind her — to say nothing of the hundreds of staff who’ve already been let go,” the editorial said. “A carousel of amateurish acting directors would only make things worse. … Staffing the agency with inexperienced loyalists will waste time and resources, increase the chances of costly mistakes, and put American lives at risk.”
The Hill has reached out to the Department of Health and Human Services and the White House for comment on the editorial.