Opinion / Commentary

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the CDC and Me

I was fired after 29 days because I held the line and insisted on rigorous scientific review.

By Susan Monarez

 

Sept. 4, 2025

 

"I served for 29 days as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Senate confirmed me to ensure that unbiased evidence serves our nation’s health, and for doing that, I lost my job. America’s children could lose far more.

...

One of the troubling directives from that meeting [with RFK Jr.] more than a week ago: I was told to preapprove the recommendations of a vaccine advisory panel newly filled with people who have publicly expressed antivaccine rhetoric. That panel’s next meeting is scheduled for Sept. 18-19. It is imperative that the panel’s recommendations aren’t rubber-stamped but instead are rigorously and scientifically reviewed before being accepted or rejected.

...

Those seeking to undermine vaccines use a familiar playbook: discredit research, weaken advisory committees, and use manipulated outcomes to unravel protections that generations of families have relied on to keep deadly diseases at bay. Once trusted experts are removed and advisory bodies are stacked, the results are predetermined. That isn’t reform. It is sabotage.

...

Public health shouldn’t be partisan. 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. I was fired for holding that line."

 

(more)

 

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/robert-f-kennedy-jr-the-cdc-and-me-b4ca2eaa?st=Zo5oVw&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

 

Americans are getting the government they deserve - lies and deceit at the highest level, with trickle-down dishonesty.

 

Perhaps it is ironic the most ignorant and misinformed are also the most at risk.

A post containing misogynist comments has been removed, per the forum's rules:

 

"15.You may not discriminate, use slurs, or post hostile or abusive comments based on personal characteristics such as race, gender... Posts breaching this rule will be removed, and posting suspension or account closure may result."

 

 

Let's see, whom should I believe:

 

RFK - a long-standing anti-vax misinformation and conspiracy theory peddler whose list of fact checked false claims could literally fill a book, and someone who has zero medical or public health expertise. Not to mention being a self-admitted former heroin addict who also previously reported that a worm had eaten part of his brain. (both of the later facts have been previously credibly sourced and reported here)

 

OR

 

Monarez -- a long serving non-partisan academic and researcher with a Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology who previously served in the U.S. government's National Security Council and Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, among other agencies. Someone who was nominated by, of all people, Donald Trump to serve as CDC director, and of whom Kennedy previously said:

 

""Dr. Monarez is a public health expert with unimpeachable scientific credentials," said Secretary Kennedy. "I have full confidence in her ability to restore the CDC's role as the most trusted authority in public health and to strengthen our nation's readiness to confront infectious diseases and biosecurity threats." [emphasis added]

 

Those were Kennedy's comments on Monarez on July 31, a little less then a month before he and Trump turned around and fired her.

 

https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2025/2025-secretary-kennedy-swears-in-susan-monarez-as-cdc-director-to-advance-make-america-healthy-again.html

 

It's really not a hard choice to decide who has more credibility here.