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NEW YORK: The director of the nation’s top public health agency is out after less than one month in the job, US officials announced Wednesday.
“Susan Monarez is no longer director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We thank her for her dedicated service to the American people,” the US Department of Health and Human Services wrote on social media.
HHS officials did not explain why Monarez is no longer with the agency.
Before the department’s announcement, she told The Associated Press: “I can’t comment.”
Monarez, 50, was the agency’s 21st director and the first to pass through Senate confirmation following a 2023 law. She was named acting director in January and then tapped as the nominee in March after Trump abruptly withdrew his first choice, David Weldon.
She was sworn in on July 31 — less than a month ago, making her the shortest-serving CDC director in the history of the 79-year-old agency.
Her short time at CDC was tumultuous. On Aug. 8, at the end of her first full week on the job, a Georgia man opened fire from a spot at a pharmacy across the street from CDC’s main entrance. The 30-year-old man blamed the COVID-19 vaccine for making him depressed and suicidal. He killed a police officer and fired more than 180 shots into CDC buildings before killing himself.
No one at CDC was injured, but it shell-shocked a staff that already had low morale from other recent changes.
The Atlanta-based federal agency was initially founded to prevent the spread of malaria in the US Its mission was later expanded, and it gradually became a global leader on infectious and chronic diseases and a go-to source of health information.
This year it’s been hit by widespread staff cuts, resignations of key officials and heated controversy over long-standing CDC vaccine policies upended by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
During her Senate confirmation process, Monarez told senators that she values vaccines, public health interventions and rigorous scientific evidence. But she largely dodged questions about whether those positions put her at odds with Kennedy, a longtime vaccine skeptic who has criticized and sought to dismantle some of the agency’s previous protocols and decisions.
The Washington Post first reported she was ousted, citing unnamed sources within the Trump administration.

MINNEAPOLIS: A gunman opened fire Wednesday on school children attending church in Minneapolis, killing two pupils and wounding 17 people, police said, in the country’s latest violent tragedy.
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara told a media briefing that the shooter, in his early twenties, sprayed bullets into the Annunciation Church as dozens of students were at Mass to celebrate their first week back to school.
The church sits next to an affiliated school in the south of the city, the largest in the state of Minnesota.
“Two young children, ages eight and 10, were killed where they sat in the pews,” O’Hara said, adding that 17 others were injured, including 14 children.
Two were in critical condition, he said.
The gunman fired a rifle, shotgun and pistol before he took his own life in the parking lot, according to the police chief.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz wrote on X earlier that he was “praying for our kids and teachers whose first week of school was marred by this horrific act of violence.”
Live video footage showed panicked parents retrieving their young children and fleeing, amid a major emergency response.

“This was a deliberate act of violence against innocent children and other people worshiping. The sheer cruelty and cowardice of firing into a church full of children is absolutely incomprehensible,” O’Hara said.
“Our hearts are broken for the families who have lost their children, for these young lives that are now fighting to recover, and for our entire community that has been so deeply traumatized by this senseless attack,” he added.
Wednesday’s violence is the latest in a long line of school shootings in the United States, where guns outnumber people and attempts to restrict access to firearms face perennial political deadlock.
“Don’t just say this is about thoughts and prayers right now. These kids were literally praying. It was the first week of school. They were in a church. These are kids that should be learning with their friends,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey told reporters.
“They should be playing on the playground. They should be able to go to school or church in peace without the fear or risk of violence.”
President Donald Trump said he had been briefed on the “tragic shooting” and that the FBI was responding.
“The White House will continue to monitor this terrible situation. Please join me in praying for everyone involved!” he wrote on his Truth Social platform.
The confirmed shooting comes after a wave of false reports of active shooters at US college campuses around the country as students return from summer break.