When Science Gets Fired: Dr. Monarez’s Warning About RFK Jr. and the CDC

She held the line for science. RFK Jr. fired her for it.

Today, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testifies before the Senate. But the most urgent testimony has already come from the woman he just forced out.

In The Wall Street Journal this morning, Dr. Susan Monarez describes with striking clarity something I witnessed firsthand during Trump’s first term. I urge you to read her entire op-ed, I’ve gifted the link so you can access it. In the pandemic response, I saw doctors and scientists bullied, sidelined, and silenced, forced to bend to political ideology rather than science. That was one of the breaking points for me, and ultimately why I became the public critic and Trump warning voice I am today. Now, we’ve come full circle. The same playbook is back, and the consequences are once again deadly serious.

Dr. Monarez, who lasted only 29 days as Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before being pressured to resign, is someone I know well. I worked with her during my time at the Department of Homeland Security (2016–2018), and I can attest: she is a brilliant scientist, a steady leader in crisis, and above all, a public servant who has always put facts before politics.

In her op-ed, Monarez recounts how RFK Jr. told her to preapprove the recommendations of a newly stacked vaccine advisory panel filled with members who had publicly spread anti-vaccine rhetoric. She refused. She insisted on a rigorous, evidence-based review before any CDC recommendations were accepted or rejected. For defending science, she was shown the door. For the record, that panel is scheduled to meet on September 18–19. Monarez warns it is imperative that its recommendations not be rubber-stamped, but instead subjected to rigorous scientific review before being accepted or rejected.

During my White House tenure in 2020, I worked closely with Dr. Stephen Hahn, then the commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). I watched him stand firm in protecting the credibility of vaccine panels, defending the integrity of the science, and preserving the process itself. I commend him for that, because I know how intense the pressure was to bend. But here’s the difference: back then, even amid Trump’s political interference, there were still guardrails, leaders who resisted, and institutions that could push back. Now, those guardrails are being stripped away. Panels are being stacked, experts are being purged, and the outcome is being preordained before the science is even considered.

Regardless of how anyone feels about the Covid pandemic or the Covid vaccines, what is happening here goes far beyond that debate. On the broader scope of vaccines and public health, the dismantling of scientific review panels and the politicization of guidance is a profound danger. If we lose trust in the process itself, every vaccine, from measles to polio to HPV, gets called into question, and the health of generations of Americans is put at risk.

That should terrify every American parent, physician, and policymaker.

The recent CDC Director wasn’t fired for misconduct or incompetence. She was fired for protecting scientific integrity.

And the timing underscores the danger. On August 8, a gunman radicalized by vaccine misinformation opened fire on the CDC’s Atlanta campus, killing an officer and leaving behind writings fueled by distrust of vaccines. Just weeks later, its leader was removed for standing up to ideology over evidence. That’s not reform, it’s sabotage.

As Dr. Monarez writes, those seeking to weaken vaccines are following a familiar playbook: discredit research, stack advisory bodies with ideologues, and manipulate outcomes to predetermine results. Once trusted experts are removed, the CDC becomes a shell of itself, an institution stripped of credibility at the exact moment Americans most need to trust it.

And Dr. Monarez is not standing alone. In a separate statement this week, nine former CDC directors and acting directors, spanning every administration from Jimmy Carter through Donald Trump, sounded the alarm in unison. Collectively, they have more than a century of experience leading the agency, and their message was blunt:

What RFK Jr. has done to America’s public health system is “unlike anything our country has ever experienced.”

They describe a Secretary who has fired thousands of health workers, dismantled life-saving programs, sidelined experts, and abandoned global vaccination efforts, all culminating in the firing of Monarez. These are not partisan voices. These are the people who built the CDC’s legacy, now warning that it is being deliberately dismantled.

The public health stakes are not hypothetical. In recent years, we saw the largest measles outbreak in more than three decades, killing children whose deaths could have been prevented. If the CDC is forced to operate as an extension of political ideology instead of scientific rigor, tragedies like this will only multiply.

Vaccines have saved millions of lives across administrations of both parties. They are one of the greatest public health achievements in history. But when you weaken the very institution tasked with protecting Americans, you don’t just play politics, you put lives at risk.

If Dr. Monarez is sounding the alarm, it’s because she knows exactly what’s at stake. And when nine of her predecessors, Republican and Democrat alike, back her up, it is no longer a warning. It is a consensus.

So as RFK Jr. sits before senators today, remember that the real testimony has already been given. It’s in Dr. Monarez’s words:

“Public health shouldn’t be partisan. Parents deserve a CDC they can trust to put children above politics, evidence above ideology and facts above fear.”

I lived through this once already, when Trump’s team sidelined doctors and put politics above public health. RFK Jr. has picked up the same hammer. And here’s a firm warning: there is already speculation that he is positioning himself for a presidential run in 2028.

Dr. Monarez stood firm and lost her job. If RFK Jr. isn’t stopped, the cost will be measured in lives.

Until next time,

Olivia