On August 27, Trump fired Susan Monarez, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Monarez had refused to go along with the anti-vaccine madness of Trump’s “health czar,” Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK). Trump had named Monarez as CDC director just a month ago. At her Senate confirmation hearing, Monarez said that “vaccines save lives” and that their use should continue to be supported. If Trump and RFK thought they could just strong-arm Monarez to go along with their anti-vaccine crusade, they were proven wrong.

Monarez was completely right when she said vaccines save lives. Vaccines for COVID-19, measles, smallpox and other serious diseases have saved 154 million lives globally in the past 50 years—the overwhelming majority of them children younger than five years. The safety of vaccines has been proven through hundreds of scientific studies. In the face of this solid scientific evidence, RFK and other anti-vaxxers have mounted lunatic—and dangerous—attacks on vaccines, and on scientists and health professionals. RFK has particularly targeted the CDC, the agency responsible for overseeing vaccines and making guidelines and recommendations for their use. He has called the COVID vaccine the “deadliest vaccine ever made.” He fired all the members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Policy, the main expert panel in the U.S. government on vaccine approval and use, and replaced them with “vaccine skeptics.”

According to news reports, RFK called Monarez into his office early last week and gave her an ultimatum: either agree to accept any “recommendations” made by that immunization policy panel (now stacked with RFK-appointed anti-vaxxers), or resign. He also demanded that Monarez fire the team of scientific experts that she managed. She refused to comply—and was fired. RFK replaced Monarez with a fellow anti-vaxxer—a biotech executive with no medical or scientific training. 

Monarez’s lawyers released a statement saying her firing was illegal. They posted on X: “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.” 

After Monarez was fired, at least three top CDC medical experts issued public resignation letters protesting RFK's anti-science gutting of CDC. Hundreds of CDC workers gathered outside the agency’s headquarters in Atlanta to express support for those officials. One of those who resigned, Demetre Daskalakis, said that he could no longer work for those who treat the CDC “as a tool to generate policies and materials that do not reflect scientific reality and are designed to hurt rather than to improve the public's health.”

Daskalakis went further: 

The recent shooting at CDC [see previous revcom.us coverage of this here] is not why I am resigning. My grandfather, who I am named after, stood up to fascist forces in Greece and lost his life doing so. I am resigning to make him and his legacy proud. I am resigning because of the cowardice of a leader that cannot admit that HIS and his minions’ words over decades created an environment where violence like this can occur. I reject his and his colleagues’ thoughts and prayers, and advise they direct those to people that they have not actively harmed. 

For decades, I have been a trusted voice for the LGBTQ community when it comes to critical health topics. I must also cite the recklessness of the administration in their efforts to erase transgender populations, cease critical domestic and international HIV programming, and terminate key research to support equity as part of my decision. 

Public health is not merely about the health of the individual, but it is about the health of the community, the nation, the world. The nation’s health security is at risk and is in the hands of people focusing on ideological self-interest.

Indeed, if the Trump fascist regime is able to barrel forward with their assault on vaccines and on scientific truth overall, the cost will be in millions of people getting seriously ill and many dying. It is very good that Monarez and others at the CDC spoke out and acted on their scientific understanding and their conscience and said NO! to the outrages being carried out by the Trump regime. And it is urgent that such resistance spread, quickly, throughout the government and other major institutions of society.