US CDC chief fired after weeks in role, challenges ouster as four top officials resign

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Susan Monarez has been fired, the White House said on Wednesday, less than a month after being sworn in, and four senior officials have resigned amid growing tensions over vaccine policies and public health directives.

Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has made sweeping changes to vaccine policies, including withdrawing federal recommendations for COVID shots for pregnant women and healthy children in May, and firing all members of the CDC's expert vaccine advisory panel in June whom he replaced with hand-picked advisers including fellow anti-vaccine activists.

One of the officials who quit said the CDC's vaccination recommendations were putting young Americans and pregnant women at risk.

White House spokesman Kush Desai late on Wednesday said Monarez was not "aligned with the President's agenda of Making America Healthy Again".