CDC director being ousted refuses to resign, says RFK Jr. is 'weaponizing public health'

[LetMyPeopleVote]

Susan Monarez was confirmed as the CDC’s director in July. Three top agency officials announced resignations as the Trump administration moved to oust her.

🚨 The CDC as we know it is being severely altered tonight.

In addition to the CDC director being ousted, the Post is reporting that several senior leaders are leaving as well.

Here are from two of the resignations:

— Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner.bsky.social) 2025-08-27T22:41:07.742Z

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/08/27/susan-monarez-cdc-director-ousted/

The Trump administration moved Wednesday to oust Susan Monarez as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention after she faced pressure to change vaccine policy, sparking the resignation of other senior CDC officials and a showdown over whether she could be removed.

Hours after the Department of Health and Human Services announced Monarez was no longer the director, her lawyers responded with a fiery statement saying she has not resigned or been fired. They accused HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. of “weaponizing public health for political gain” and “putting millions of American lives at risk” by purging health officials from government.

“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,” the lawyers Mark S. Zaid and Abbe Lowell wrote in a statement. “For that reason, she has been targeted.”

Wednesday’s shakeups — which include the resignation of the agency’s chief medical officer, the director of its infectious disease center and other key officials — add to the tumult at the nation’s premier public health agency. Kennedy and his allies have long criticized the CDC as too deferential to the vpharmaceutical industry and vaccine makers. As the nation’s top health official, Kennedy has upended vaccine policies, including on Wednesday narrowing approval of coronavirus vaccines to high-risk groups, and he has taken steps medical experts worry are undermining the nation’s public health response......

Since taking office, Kennedy has upended the government’s approach to vaccination, including firing every member of an advisory committee that recommends vaccines, terminating research funding for mRNA vaccines and reviving a task force to scrutinize the childhood immunization schedule......

Public health advocates had hoped Monarez, a longtime federal government scientist, would be a check on Kennedy and block him from limiting access to vaccines. Kennedy on Wednesday announced that the health agency signed off on new coronavirus vaccines, but that the agency limited approval to people ages 65 and older or who have risk factors for severe coronavirus disease instead of everyone ages 6 months and older.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

1. Statement from the Lawyers

Link to tweet

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. I searched DU to see if "refused to rubber-stamp" had been quoted, and what do you know, it happened in May too

and to another woman in charge, as well:

Trump sacked Copyright Office director a day after she refused to rubber-stamp Musk's plan to train AI models

• Rep. Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.)has denounced President Trump’s removal of Shira Perlmutter as an unprecedented power grab, suggesting it was done following a report that found that AI companies sometimes breach copyright laws. Major AI firms like OpenAI, which Elon Musk cofounded, are facing ongoing lawsuits over alleged unauthorized use of copyrighted materials in their model training.

A top Democrat has called the recent firing of director of the U.S. Copyright Office, Shira Perlmutter, "a brazen, unprecedented power grab."

In a press release, Rep. Joe Morelle said: “Donald Trump’s termination of Register of Copyrights, Shira Perlmutter, is a brazen, unprecedented power grab with no legal basis. It is surely no coincidence he acted less than a day after she refused to rubber-stamp Elon Musk’s efforts to mine troves of copyrighted works to train AI models.

“Register Perlmutter is a patriot, and her tenure has propelled the Copyright Office into the 21st century by comprehensively modernizing its operations and setting global standards on the intersection of AI and intellectual property," he said in the statement, adding the action violates Congress’s Article One authority and risks throwing a trillion-dollar industry into chaos.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-sacked-copyright-office-director-142551502.html

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100220313163