The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee is slated to hold an oversight hearing on Wednesday regarding the ouster of top leadership at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Susan Monarez and former Chief Medical Officer Dr. Debra Houry were invited by health committee chairman Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) to share their testimony before the committee to restore “trust through radical transparency.”
Monarez was fired by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and President Donald Trump on August 27, only 29 days after she was sworn into the office following her protracted Senate confirmation process.
Media reports indicate that Monarez and Kennedy had an intense falling out over vaccine policy. Monarez has publicly accused Kennedy of taking political control over the agency instead of allowing her and her staff to follow the science.
Here is the context of some of the more obscure things to watch during the hearing.
‘Trustworthiness’ and Monarez firing timeline
“Trustworthy” is likely to be a buzzword during the hearing as committee members attempt to shed light on the palace intrigue at CDC leading up to Monarez’s ouster.
During a hearing before the Senate Finance Committee earlier this month, Kennedy said that Monarez told him that she was “untrustworthy,” which was the reason he decided to fire her.
But Monarez’s written testimony for Wednesday’s hearing, obtained in advance by the Washington Examiner, said that Kennedy “told [Monarez] that he could not trust [her]” after she refused to fire top scientists at the agency and relinquish policy decisions to political appointees.
Monarez’s written testimony outlines that she met with Kennedy on August 25, two days before her termination. During the meeting, Monarez says Kennedy directed her to promise to pre-approve all decisions made by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel.
Before Monarez’s confirmation, Kennedy fired all 17 prior members of the ACIP and hand-selected seven new members who have a history of being critical of vaccine policy. He appointed five more members on Monday, days before the board is scheduled to meet to approve changes to the childhood vaccine schedule.
“I had refused to commit to approving vaccine recommendations without evidence, fire career officials, or resign — and I had shared my concerns with this Committee,” Monarez wrote in her testimony. “I told the Secretary that if he believed he could not trust me, he could fire me.”
Houry’s record during the COVID pandemic
Monarez was nominated from outside of the CDC, but Houry served at the CDC for 10 years in a career scientist capacity prior to her resignation.
Houry’s history is likely to be highlighted by supporters of Kennedy’s tight control over the agency following policy mistakes made by the agency during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Houry was appointed Chief Medical Officer in 2021, serving as a top adviser to former CDC Director Rochelle Walensky.
Walensky has been lambasted by Republicans for, among other things, coordinating with the teachers’ unions during the pandemic to recommend protracted lockdown policies, which have had long-term negative consequences for learning outcomes.
Before taking on her executive role, Houry used her emergency medicine specialty to revitalize the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, or NCIPC, within the CDC. That, too, was politicized during Walensky’s time in office when the CDC began collecting gun violence statistics as part of its public health mission.
Kennedy and his supporters have highlighted both the hyper-politicization of the CDC and the failures during COVID, including school lockdowns, as the justification directing Monarez to fire Houry and other senior agency staff, her refusal of which led to her termination.
Operation Warp Speed and a Nobel Prize for Trump
Cassidy and Majority Whip Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), also a physician, wrote an op-ed in the National Review on Tuesday before the hearing that Trump deserves a Nobel Prize for Operation Warp Speed, the effort to create mRNA COVID-19 vaccines during the height of the pandemic.
Cassidy, Barrasso, and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) asked Kennedy during his Finance committee hearing earlier this month whether or not Trump deserved a Nobel Prize for Operation Warp Speed, but he did not give a straight answer.
Since taking over at HHS, Kennedy has cut funding for mRNA research projects, which vaccine supporters say will greatly hinder progress.
In her written testimony, Houry says that Operation Warp Speed is “proof that when America bets on science and execution, we save lives and strengthen our economy.”
“President Trump and his first administration proved that partnerships can deliver at a historic scale,” wrote Houry. “Operation Warp Speed cut through red tape, aligned agencies, and mobilized industry so that the first COVID-19 vaccines were authorized within months.”
Neither Houry nor Monarez’s opening statements reference the Nobel Prize.
Hepatitis B vaccine and other childhood vaccines
Republican members of the committee are likely to verbally spar over the Hepatitis B vaccine in particular, which has been a sticking point between pro- and anti-vaccine advocates.
Hepatitis B is transmitted through bodily fluids, such as blood or semen, and is considered by some to be a sexually transmitted infection. The disease can also be spread through needles, such as tattooing equipment, shared nail clippers or grooming supplies, and from mother to child during childbirth.
Although most mothers are tested for Hepatitis B during their first trimester, as many as 14% of pregnant women in the U.S. go untested, therefore risking passing the disease to their children should they be positive. Other mothers can contract the infection at later stages in pregnancy without knowing it.
ACIP during its meeting this week is likely to remove recommendations for infants to be vaccinated for Hepatitis B on their first day of life, which Cassidy has said will put children at risk of developing severe chronic conditions, including liver disease, later in life.
OUTSTED CDC CHIEF SAYS RFK JR. FIRED HER FOR ‘HOLDING THE LINE ON SCIENTIFIC INTEGRITY’
The Hepatitis B vaccine has been an issue among leading Republicans on the Senate health committee for several months.
Cassidy and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) argued about the necessity of vaccinating infants on their first day of life during Kennedy’s confirmation hearing before the HELP committee this spring. They have subsequently also debated the need for the vaccine on social media.
