Dr. Susan Monarez, the previous head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, will testify to Congress following her abrupt ouster final month amid a clash with US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over vaccine coverage.
The Senate’s well being committee introduced Tuesday that it’ll host her at a listening to subsequent week, granting Monarez a high-profile perch to deal with her firing in entrance of cameras for the primary time. Monarez shall be joined by former senior CDC official Debra Houry, who resigned in protest following Monarez’s ouster.
Both have criticized Kennedy since their departures, accusing him of looking for to undercut the nation’s vaccine requirements and make coverage modifications that aren’t adequately supported by science. Monarez wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed following her firing that she was eliminated after refusing to promise she’d log off on suggestions made by a panel of advisers handpicked by Kennedy.
The committee additionally stated it could maintain a future listening to with HHS officers to enable them to reply to Monarez and Houry’s testimony.
Monarez’s firing, which got here lower than a month into her tenure and threw the CDC into additional disaster, has raised considerations from lawmakers on each side of the aisle and prompted a number of Republican senators to specific reservations about Kennedy’s vaccine agenda.
In the listening to announcement, Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, a physician and vaccine proponent who chairs the well being committee and and forged a pivotal vote in favor of Kennedy’s affirmation to run HHS, stated Monarez and Houry’s testimony was vital as a result of “Americans need to know what has happened and is happening at the CDC.”
“They need to be reassured child’s health is given priority,” stated Cassidy.
The September 17 listening to is scheduled a day earlier than the subsequent assembly of the CDC vaccine committee, whose members shall be appointed by Kennedy after he abruptly eliminated all earlier 17 sitting members of the panel. The panel is schedule to think about altering suggestions for Hepatitis B, RSV and Covid-19 vaccines.
Cassidy had beforehand referred to as for that assembly to be postponed within the wake of Monarez’s firing, although the committee has not indicated it can delay its session.
At a listening to final week in entrance of the Senate Finance Committee, Kennedy denied that he fired Monarez for refusing to log off on vaccine coverage modifications and referred to as the previous CDC chief a liar. He stated as a substitute that he requested for Monarez’s resignation after she informed him she was not a reliable particular person.
Since then, Kennedy and different Trump administration officers have pointed to Monarez’s ouster as proof that the CDC wants a broader overhaul.
“The problem with CDC is it was supporting dogma all through Covid, Americans saw it for the first time. I’ve been watching for 20 years,” Kennedy stated in a Fox News interview on Tuesday. “We need a CDC director who’s going to follow his science, and that’s what we’re going to do.”
Following Kennedy’s testimony to Congress final week, Monarez’s legal professionals rejected Kennedy’s claims as “false, and at times, patently ridiculous” and provided to have Monarez testify below oath.
Amanda Sealy contributed to this report.