--- title: Former CDC Director Susan Monarez Testifies About Clashes With RFK Jr. in Senate Hearing | TIME description: Susan Monarez, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), addressed the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions on Wednesday to testify on the recent turmoil at the public health agency. Monarez told Senators that before she was fired last month, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. demanded two things of her that she said were "inconsistent with [her] oath of office." canonical: https://time.com/video/3r7EL3fd/ og:title: Former CDC Director Susan Monarez Testifies About Clashes With RFK Jr. in Senate Hearing og:description: Susan Monarez, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), addressed the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions on Wednesday to testify on the recent turmoil at the public health agency. Monarez told Senators that before she was fired last month, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. demanded two things of her that she said were "inconsistent with [her] oath of office." og:url: https://time.com/video/3r7EL3fd/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/3r7EL3fd/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Former CDC Director Susan Monarez Testifies About Clashes With RFK Jr. in Senate Hearing twitter:description: Susan Monarez, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), addressed the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions on Wednesday to testify on the recent turmoil at the public health agency. Monarez told Senators that before she was fired last month, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. demanded two things of her that she said were "inconsistent with [her] oath of office." twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/3r7EL3fd/poster.jpg?width=720 --- * Health # Former CDC Director Susan Monarez Testifies About Clashes With RFK Jr. in Senate Hearing > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Subscription: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition TIME is a general-interest news organization founded in 1923, reporting on the people, ideas and issues shaping the world. A TIME subscription provides full access to that journalism in print and digital, from $20 a year, and can be cancelled at any time. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-sub-2026q3/newsletters?i=5baee681-a3c5-42a5-8549-ca4fbd427599&cr=time-sub-2026q3-v1) * TIME Subscriptions: [time.com/subscribe-agent](/c/time-sub-2026q3/subscribe?i=5baee681-a3c5-42a5-8549-ca4fbd427599&cr=time-sub-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Former CDC Director Susan Monarez Testifies About Clashes With RFK Jr. in Senate Hearing [Watch (HLS stream): Former CDC Director Susan Monarez Testifies About Clashes With RFK Jr. in Senate Hearing](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/3r7EL3fd.m3u8) (5:43)  _Published 2025-09-17. Susan Monarez, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), addressed the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions on Wednesday to testify on the recent turmoil at the public health agency. Monarez told Senators that before she was fired last month, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. demanded two things of her that she said were "inconsistent with her oath of office."_ --- Sep 17, 2025 8:20 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [RFK Jr. Doubles Down on Vaccine Skepticism In Contentious Senate Hearing](/video/takCRocG/) ### RFK Jr. Doubles Down on Vaccine Skepticism In Contentious Senate Hearing [Amid Chaos at CDC, White House Stands With RFK Jr.’s Decision to Fire Director](/video/xCivGdIt/) ### Amid Chaos at CDC, White House Stands With RFK Jr.’s Decision to Fire Director [RFK Jr. Grilled on Vaccines in Contentious Senate Hearing](/video/2fqRpYmV/) ### RFK Jr. Grilled on Vaccines in Contentious Senate Hearing --- ## Transcript This hearing is not just about determining why Doctor Monarez was fired, and why Doctor Howrey and other scientists at the CDC resigned. The issue is deeper than that. It is about Secretary Kennedy's dangerous war on science, public health and the truth itself. Unacceptably, we now have an HHS secretary who does not believe in established scientists science, and who listens to conspiracy theorists and ideologues rather than doctors and medical professionals. It is absurd to have to say this in the year 2025, but vaccines are safe and effective. Today should not be about me. Today should be about the future of trust in public health. On the morning of August 25th, Secretary Kennedy demanded two things of me. There were inconsistent with my oath of office and the ethics required of a public official. He directed me to commit in advance to approving every ACIp recommendation, regardless of the scientific evidence. He also directed me to dismiss career officials responsible for vaccine policy without cause. He said if I was unwilling to do both, I should resign. I responded that I could not pre-approve recommendations without reviewing the evidence, and I had no basis to fire scientific experts. He told me he had already spoken with the white House several times about having me removed. Vaccine policy must be guided by credible data, not predetermined outcomes. As I wrote in my September 4th Wall Street Journal op ed, I agree with President Trump. We should not hesitate to ask for proof about our vaccines. And I also agree with his most recent comments that vaccines are not controversial because they work. Demanding evidence is exactly what I was doing when I insisted CDC recommendations be based on credible science. I could have stayed silent, agreed to the demands, and no one would have known what the public would have seen were scientists dismissed without cause and vaccine protections quietly eroded, all under the authority of a Senate confirmed director with unimpeachable credentials. I could have kept the office the title, but I would have lost the one thing that cannot be replaced my integrity. Some may question my motives or mischaracterize my words. That is part of public life. But I am not here as a politician. I am here as a scientist, a public servant, and a parent committed to protecting the health of future generations instead of promoting vaccines. The secretary spread misinformation and. Promoted unproven treatments. CDC's labs and data systems are our nation's first line of defense against pandemics and bio threats. But those defenses are being weakened. Under the Secretary, global flu sample submissions have dropped by 60% and Covid samples by 70%, leaving us with far less visibility into what's coming. Trust and transparency have been broken. Here again. The problem is not too much science, but too little. I first learned that the Secretary had changed our CDC Covid vaccine guidance on an ex social media post. CDC scientists have still not seen the scientific data or justification for this change. That is not gold. Standard science. What keeps you up at night? What keeps you up at night? Very concisely. The next outbreak. And I don't believe that we'll be prepared. I'm concerned about the future of CDC and public health in our country, given what I have seen. If we continue down this path, we are not prepared not just for pandemics, but for preventing chronic health disease. And we're going to see kids dying of vaccine preventable diseases. You have to be unhinged to take a gun and fire it into a medical building. But these conspiracy theories about vaccines and about the people who are recommending vaccines, um, I fear they come with consequences. Um, do you fear for the safety, um, of the CDC and of medical personnel if these, beliefs about the CDC actually recommending things that hurt people continue to become mainstream. I do worry about that. I myself was subject to threats, and I, I am very concerned that the further promulgation of misleading information will undermine not just the safety and health of our children, but it will also exacerbate some of these tensions. The the, um, the the willingness to commit harm. If someone is affronted by a belief that the people like us that are trying to help them are actually not trying to help them. Each bullet was meant for a person, and each of my staff were very traumatized afterwards. Um, I had staff that were covering their kids in the daycare parking lot. There were people that were out at the ride share as bullets were passing over their head. I have many that won't speak about vaccines now to remove their names off of papers. 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