Fired C.D.C. Director Describes Clashes With Kennedy and Turmoil at Agency

The former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told a Senate panel on Wednesday that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., called C.D.C. employees “corrupt” and accused them of “killing children” during a tense private meeting with her the week before she was fired.

In a sometimes contentious hearing before the Senate health committee, Dr. Susan Monarez told senators she was fired “for holding the line on scientific integrity.” She said she refused Mr. Kennedy’s demands to fire top C.D.C. scientists and to sign off on vaccine recommendations issued by his handpicked advisory panel without seeing the data or science underlying them.