RFK Jr. needs to deal with the CDC's data problem

Last week, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. faced the closest a Senate hearing can look like a firing squad. Kennedy’s firing of Centers for Disease Control Director Susan Monarez, a month after the Senate had confirmed her, rightly caused some to point out that continuous organizational drama is not the expected metier at the federal health department.

His defense, essentially that she had lied to him about her position on vaccine science, was hardly persuasive. To my reading, his mistake was taking on someone whose whole career involved cycling through multiple federal agencies. She was what in the first Trump administration would have been called a deep state operative.