CDC director is out after twenty-nine days; the official reason is 'not aligned with the President's agenda.'

The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was fired on Wednesday. She had been on the job for twenty-nine days. Twenty-nine. That is shorter than the trial period at most jobs that come with a name plate.

Her name is Susan Monarez. Microbiologist. Career public-health official. The Senate confirmed her in July. The official reason given for her firing, by an HHS spokesperson, was that she was “not aligned with the President’s agenda.” Her own lawyers, the same evening, said she had refused to “rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives” from the Health and Human Services Secretary. The directives concerned vaccine recommendations.

Hon. The CDC director’s job is to not rubber-stamp unscientific directives. That is, in a literal sense, the job description. The CDC was created so that vaccine policy in this country would be set by people who go to the meetings, read the papers, and review the data. Not by the man in the office down the hall who happens to be related to the President.

Four senior career officials at the CDC resigned the same night Monarez was fired. Four. People who have spent their careers — twenty, thirty years — at the agency. They walked. The agency now operates with a new acting director who is a deputy of the same HHS Secretary who pushed Monarez to rubber-stamp the directives she refused to rubber-stamp.

You ever notice how the people who promise to “follow the science” are always the loudest about following the science right up until the science says something they don’t want.

There is a list of countries where public health officials get fired for refusing political directives. The list is short. The countries on it are not famous for public health. We are now on a path to be discussed in the same paragraph as those countries, by the people who write the public health textbooks ten years from now, and the paragraph is not going to be flattering.

Twenty-nine days.

That ought to concern you.