RFK Jr. Claimed CDC Was ‘Killing Children’ According to Former Director

Former CDC Director Susan Monarez testified at a combative Senate hearing in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday about the ways that HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is dismantling scientific expertise at CDC, confirming the worst fears of every American who still cares about science and public health.

Monarez, who was fired by President Donald Trump less than a month after being confirmed, told senators that Kennedy told her in August that he was going to change the childhood vaccine schedule in September and “I needed to be on board with it.” She was then pushed out of the agency before being formally let go by Trump for refusing to go along with the changes and firing others who disagreed.

“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,” Monarez said. “I would have lost the one thing that cannot be replaced: my integrity.”

Secrets at CDC

Monarez testified that she was instructed by Secretary Kennedy not to speak with senators, a bizarre request for a Senate-confirmed political appointment. The CDC Director was not a position that required Senate approval until 2023. Monarez testified that after she talked with members of Congress about some of her concerns, Kennedy instructed her to never do that again.

Monarez was asked by Sen. Maggie Hassan, a Democrat from New Hampshire, about what happened when she pushed back on his demands to fire CDC officials who wouldn’t go along with his anti-vaccine agenda.

Monarez also testified that Kennedy had said “particularly hurtful and disparaging” comments about the CDC during their conversations. She said Kennedy called the CDC “the most corrupt federal agency in the world” and even said that “CDC employees were horrible people.”

“He said that CDC employees were killing children and they don’t care,” Monarez said of Kennedy. “He said that CDC employees were bought by the pharmaceutical industry. He said CDC forced people to wear masks, social distance like a dictatorship.”

Monarez went on to say that the comment that hurt her the most was “a particularly vivid phrase” claiming that during the covid-19 outbreak, “CDC told hospitals to turn away sick covid patients until they had blue lips before allowing them to get treatment.”

Kennedy’s quackery

Over 2,000 people have been fired or attempted to be fired since Kennedy took power at HHS, according to discussions on Wednesday. Kennedy is a longtime anti-vaccine activist who has falsely claimed that no vaccines are safe and effective, something that he would later claim he never said. Kennedy also doesn’t believe in germ theory and has floated conspiracy theories about covid-19, including the idea that it was engineered to be less lethal for Chinese people and Jews.

Back in June, Kennedy fired all 17 members of CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), the outside experts who give guidance on the country’s vaccine policies. Kennedy has been stacking the committee with many people who simply aren’t qualified to be giving an opinion on the safety and efficacy of vaccines.

The new members of ACIP will meet on Thursday and Friday to discuss changes to the vaccine recommendations, including for hepatitis B and covid. And experts are fearful of what may come out of that meeting, given the confusion sparked by new guidance that covid-19 vaccines should only be administered to those who are 65+ or have a preexisting condition that puts them at high risk.

Is there a recording or not?

Sen. Bill Cassidy from Louisiana was one of the few Republicans in Wednesday’s hearing who wasn’t transparently trying to attack Monarez for being insufficiently loyal to Trump. Cassidy is a former physician and brought up breaking news during the hearing from the Washington Post that Kennedy wrote an email to Monarez on Aug. 19 stating that all major policy decisions at CDC needed approval from political appointees at the agency.

But most Republicans who asked Monarez questions on Wednesday were openly hostile.

Sen. Markwayne Mullin, a Republican from Oklahoma, pressed Monarez about the exact words used during a meeting with Kennedy before she was fired. Mullin suggested repeatedly that she was a liar and said that she should be careful about how she responded. Mullin warned her that the conversation between her and Kennedy had been recorded.

Monarez responded that Kennedy had said he couldn’t trust her and that she said he should fire her if that was the case. “He told me he could not trust me, and I told him that if he could not trust me he could fire me,” Monarez said very precisely.

Mullin claimed that her version of the meeting wasn’t true, stressing the conversation had been recorded. “That isn’t how that conversation went. And you know that, don’t you?” said Mullin smugly. The senator repeated the claim that she wasn’t being honest about what was discussed.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, an Independent from Vermont who caucuses with the Democrats, said that if such a recording exists, it should be produced for the entire committee to hear. Later in the hearing, Sen. Cassidy read off a sheet of paper to report that Mullin had apparently told reporters shortly after his questions that he was “mistaken” about there being a recording.

“For the record, it’s just been reported that Senator Mullin told reporters that he was mistaken in saying that the RFK-Monarez meeting was recorded,” said Cassidy. “But in case he’s mistaken that he was mistaken, if there is a recording, it should be released.”

Cassidy went on to say that he wants to know if other conversations at HHS had been recorded and that the committee had sent a request to HHS for records but “we’ve yet to receive those.”

Pressing Monarez from the right

Republican Sen. Rand Paul from Kentucky repeatedly tried to suggest that vaccines were unsafe during his questions to Monarez. And Kennedy clearly took notice and took to social media to chime in. “Thank you @RandPaul,” Kennedy tweeted.

Sen. Ashley Moody, a Republican from Florida, took a different angle in her attacks and badgered Monarez about the attorneys that were sitting behind her, describing them as “anti-Trump lawyers.” Moody kept insisting that she wasn’t trying to be adversarial while repeatedly asking for the names of the lawyers, which is public information.

Several other Republicans kept trying to imply that it was suspicious that Monarez had lawyers and kept trying to pin her down on when they were hired, as though that would suggest she was inherently a suspicious and untrustworthy witness. Monarez didn’t bend to the questioning, but it was a strange spectacle to watch as Trump’s allies were clearly grasping at anything to distract from Kennedy’s dismantling of the CDC.

Fears after CDC shooting

The hearing also included a discussion of the recent shooting at CDC headquarters in Atlanta by a man who believed he had been harmed by the covid-19 vaccine. The 30-year-old shooter, identified as Patrick David White, shot about 500 rounds during his attack, 180 of which hit the building. White killed himself after murdering a police officer, according to PBS News.

The attack has shaken the agency, and Debra Houry, a former CDC official who also testified Wednesday, said that some vaccine scientists at CDC have taken their names off papers they’ve authored in an effort to protect themselves. The anti-vaccine sentiment in the country, led by Kennedy, has been making everyone less safe in a multitude of ways.

“Each bullet was meant for a person,” said Houry. “And each of my staff were very traumatized afterwards.”

“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,” said Houry. “I have many that won’t speak about vaccines now and remove their names off of papers. They don’t wish to present publicly anymore because they feel they were personally targeted because of misinformation.”

The crippling nostalgia of conservatism

Sen. Roger Marshall, a Republican from Kansas, started his questions with topics that would be perplexing to outside viewers. His inquiries related to assigned seating at CDC and other ridiculously minor issues, like: “Did you encourage people to work remotely ever?”

Marshall then went on to ask questions about vaccine mandates and the number of shots that children receive. The 65-year-old senator, like so many conservatives with a very rosey view of their own childhood who are skeptical of any new scientific advancements, said the vaccines were fine during the era when he was a kid. But he didn’t like that Monarez was opposed to the goals of Kennedy and Trump.

“The basic vaccines that we got in the ’60s and ’70s, polio, MMR, DTAP, those seem to be great vaccines that have told the test at time,” Marshall said. “But your attitude here that every person needs every vaccine is completely contrary to Secretary Kennedy’s philosophy and the mission of the president.”

Sen. Jon Husted, a Republican from Michigan, had a similar approach. He took issue with how the CDC talked about childhood vaccines and told Monarez he disliked CDC warnings about the potential diseases that unvaccinated kids could contract. He suggested the tone used by the public health agency was too scary.

“We shouldn’t scare people that they’re endangering their lives,” Husted said of parents who don’t vaccinate their kids.

In many ways, Husted’s attitude really sums up where we’re at as a country. Issuing public health warnings is considered “alarmist” because so many people in the 2020s don’t remember the diseases that were largely wiped out in the U.S. during the late 20th and early 21st century. They don’t have first-hand experience with things like polio or measles, so they don’t think those vaccines are necessary anymore.

Sen. Bernie Sanders may have said it best Wednesday: “It is absurd to have to say this in the year 2025, but vaccines are safe and effective.”