Centers for Disease Control Director Susan Monarez has abruptly left the post just weeks after being sworn in, the Department of Health and Human Services confirmed on Wednesday.
Why it matters: The career government scientist’s departure is the latest sign of upheaval within the Trump administration’s health bureaucracy.
- Daniel Jernigan, CDC’s director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, also resigned his post on Wednesday, according to an internal email viewed by Axios.
- Requests for comment from HHS and the White House were not immediately returned.
Monarez’s departure comes the same day HHS announced it will limit who is eligible for COVID vaccines.
- During her brief tenure, the agency was targeted in an attack on its Atlanta headquarters by a gunman influenced by anti-vaccine rhetoric and moved ahead with hundreds of job cuts.
Between the lines: Monarez was confirmed to the job on July 29 after being nominated in May by President Trump after the president’s previous pick Dave Weldon was pulled.
- She walked a fine line during hearings in her support for vaccines while not contradicting HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Catch up quick: Her departure continued a series of abrupt personnel changes throughout federal health agencies that saw FDA’s lead vaccine regulator Vinay Prasad return to his post earlier this month after he unexpectedly departed in late July.
What do you expect when your boss is still recovering from brain worms and your boss’s boss is a three-quarters dead narcissist?
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/trump-s-cdc-director-ousted-in-stunning-departure/ar-AA1LlBv4