See below for video, courtesy of the PBS NewsHour, of Sen. Tim Kaine “question[ing] former CDC Director Susan Monarez on Wednesday about her removal from the agency.” As the NewsHour summarizes:
“Monarez testified in the hearing about the political pressure she says she faced from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. She says she was fired after she refused to preapprove vaccine recommendations from a CDC panel without seeing scientific evidence. Kennedy has denied these claims and told senators earlier this month that she was lying.
Monarez’s firing led to the resignations of several other top health officials, including chief medical officer Dr. Debra Houry, who also testified in Wednesday’s hearing.
The hearing comes a day before a meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, the panel that issues vaccine recommendations. Kennedy, known for his anti-vaccine advocacy, has come under fire for removing all members of the board and replacing them with people who align with his views. The panel is expected to vote on authorizations for COVID-19 vaccines, among others.”
At the hearing, Dr. Monarez said
So here are some highlights from what Sen. Kaine had to say:
- “Dr. Monarez, I owe you an apology. When you were here for your confirmation hearing, I questioned you very significantly, not on your qualifications – you got over the qualifications bar easily – but my worries about the direction of HHS made me question you very significantly on your backbone, a trait that is not in long supply in this town. And then when I voted against your confirmation. I cited that as the reason. Again, no concern about your qualifications. I had concern about your backbone. And I was wrong and I apologize to you for being wrong. I think it’s important when you’re wrong to admit you’re wrong.”
- “So Senate confirmed…CDC director…instructed not to speak to senators…Well, putting a gag order on a CDC director and directing her not to speak to those who have confirmed her and to whom she is responsible for oversight is a very serious matter.”
- “I want to talk about measles…1,454 cases in the US, four in Virginia. And I’m just gonna give you about the most recent one in Virginia. School-age child, early September, 5 to 12 years old. Measles is really contagious, spreads through the air. You can contract measles when somebody has had it in a room, even two hours after they’ve gone from the room, and you often don’t show symptoms for days. When this child with measles was identified and the case was reported to public health officials, our Virginia Department of Health had to spring into action. They had to find potential exposure. The child, while infected but before demonstrating symptoms, had attended school for one day and had visited multiple healthcare facilities. In one day, 1,000 Virginians were exposed to measles by this one child. The VDH coordinated with the healthcare community and the school district to contract trace 1,000 people, followed up with 800 people. including babies… too young to be vaccinated, had repeated contacts with these individuals to make sure that they weren’t showing symptoms. The VDH has dozens of staff, about 50 were working on this issue. And within days of the knowledge of the case, the VDH had worked to notify al 1,000 people. Now they have to continue to monitor for another 21 days. 45 to 50 officials had to work just on this one case. I’m very proud of their work, and I’m sharing the background just so people understand how serious even one case of measles is. The Infectious Disease Society of America says the median cost for a health department to respond to one case of measles is $32,000. So just multiply that by the 1,454 cases this year, $46,464,000 already to respond to measles, which is at a rate that we haven’t seen in a number of years…So for Virginia just to contact trace a 1000 people, $223,000 for one case. I bring this all up because to make it even harder for states to respond in March, Secretary Kennedy rescinded $11.4 billion in public health funding to states, to Virginia, our Department of Health’s lost $425 million during the worst measles spread we’ve seen in recent years. The money was being used to modernize the state’s technology to allow it to better track and respond to outbreaks, to upgrade the state’s epidemiology labs and to support community health workers. 500 employees and contractors in Virginia have been laid off because of these cuts. This shouldn’t be happening. Doctor Houry, did you or career scientist ever brief Secretary Kennedy about recent measles outbreaks? [Answer by Dr. Debra Houry, the CDC’s former chief medical officer: We did not brief Secretary Kennedy.] Did you speak with any HHS or CDC political staff regarding the outbreaks? [Answer: With CDC political staff, absolutely…]”
