The U.S. Senate confirmed Susan Monarez, PhD as Director of the CDC this week on a 51–47 party-line vote. I did some checking with my CDC sources… and from what I can tell, the appointment choice was about as good as we could expect from Kennedy.
Kennedy Swears in Susan Monarez as CDC Director | CDC Newsroom
Susan Coller Monarez | LinkedIn
Monarez has a Ph.D. in microbiology/immunology from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and has done postdoctoral work at Stanford.
While she took some heat for not being an MD at her hearing, that’s not a big deal to me. I’m more interested in whether a person has a reputation of using evidence to drive the agency’s decisions and has shown they can effectively manage a large organization with integrity and fidelity to evidence.
From what I can tell from my sources, Monarez has a reputation of basing her opinions and decisions on evidence rather than ideology. Some said she has a reputation for being too deferential to leadership. Such a personality trait is bad given that she reports to Kennedy – so that’s not so great.
At her confirmation hearing last week, she sidestepped questions related to Kennedy’s recent and proposed future budget and staffing cuts at CDC as well as the dismissal of all members of ACIP and replacing them with mostly anti-vax ideologues. That’s not good.
On the other hand, she emphasized at the hearing that vaccines save lives & said she has seen no evidence to suggest there’s a causal link between vaccines and autism. She promised to maintain vaccine availability and make policy decisions based on scientific evidence, including around mRNA vaccines. So those are good things.
Sadly, none of the Senators asked Monarez about her commitment to or opinions about the Vaccines for Children program. Those would have been important questions, as VFC is among the biggest levers Kennedy has to achieve his goal of fewer vaccinations.
Mostly folks said they were relieved that Monarez is a career public health person with research, policy, and management experience and that her decisions over her career have generally been grounded in evidence.
Time will tell but seems to me it could have been worse. A lot worse.