Trump fires railroad board member and director of top US health agency

The US Department of Health and Human Services announced her resignation in a brief social media post late Wednesday afternoon. Monarez's lawyers responded with a statement saying that she did not resign nor was she told that she had been fired. "When CoC Director Susan Monarez refused to endorse unscientific and reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts, she chose to protect the public rather than serve a political agenda. That is why she was targeted," lawyers Mark Zaid and Abbe David Lowell wrote in a statement.

"This is not about a single official. This is about the systematic dismantling of public health institutions, the silence imposed on experts and the dangerous politicisation of science. The attack on Dr Monarez is a warning to all Americans: our evidence-based systems are being undermined from within,' they said.

Four other senior CoC officials resigned during the week. The list includes Dr Debra Houry, deputy director of the agency; Dr Daniel Jernigan, head of the agency's National Centre for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases; Dr Demetre Daskalakis, head of the National Centre for Respiratory Diseases and Immunisation; and Dr Jennifer Layden, director of the Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance and Technology.

In an e-mail viewed by the Associated Press, Houry lamented the devastating effects on the agency's services caused by planned budget cuts, reorganisation and layoffs. "I am committed to protecting public health, but the ongoing changes prevent me from continuing to do my job as the agency's leader," she wrote. She also pointed to the increase in misinformation about vaccines during the current Trump administration and mentioned the new limits imposed on CoC communications.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr reformed the committee by firing all members and replacing them with a group that included several vaccine sceptics, one of whom was appointed to lead a working group on Covid-19 vaccines. Some public health experts denounced the loss of so many of the CoC's scientific leaders. 'It is undergoing a decapitation. This is an absolute disaster for public health,' said Dr Robert Steinbrook of Public Citizen. Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease researcher at the University of Minnesota, said the resignation was 'a great loss for America'. Monarez, 50, was the agency's 21st director, He was sworn in on 31 July, less than a month ago, his tenure the shortest in the agency's 79-year history.