Dr. Susan Monares was sworn in as director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday, and she is taking the reins at the agency’s dangerous times.
The CDC has lost nearly a quarter of its staff since January thanks to massive workforce cuts at federal health agencies. The 2026 Trump administration’s proposed budget would cut institutional funds by more than half. And under the proposed reorganization, the CDC is expected to lose more of its program. Some will be transferred to a new administration for a healthy America, but others, such as the National Chronic Diseases and Health Promotion Center, will be eliminated entirely.
All this has undermined years of federal policies and processes supporting the US vaccination, as US Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has long promoted misinformation about vaccines.
Kennedy has also silenced scientists amid the worst measles outbreak in the United States for the first time in 30 years, with communications coming out of federal health agencies, including the CDC.
Many agencies and the wider public health world believe that Monares is either a savior or a savior.
The morale among agency staff is bleak, a CDC official told the condition that it was not named for fear of retaliation.
Officials said staff members did not know what Monales’ confirmation would mean. Many consider her to be a great scientist and someone with experience in leading federal agency positions.
But they are also wondering whether she will be constrained by Kennedy, officials said.
Monares was the CDC’s assistant director and acting director from January to March. She rejected herself from agency decisions while waiting for confirmation from the Senate.
According to a second CDC source, Monares said he was silent during his early weeks at the agency.
“We had never heard of her when she was interim director and was able to interact with staff,” said a source who spoke anonymously for fear of retaliation.
“Everyone is pretty disappointed that she’s not a medical or public health person and there’s no HHS leadership either,” the staff said.
Monares has a doctorate. In microbiology and immunology, you are not a doctor. She will be the first CDC director since the 1950s with no clinical background.
During her confirmation hearing, Monales described herself as the daughter of a rural Wisconsin dairy farmer who attended state schools and paid her way through college and graduate school. Her research focuses on two diseases, sleep disease and toxoplasmosis in Africa, and although treatment for these diseases remains limited, she said she was attracted to public health because public health interventions reduced the impact of the disease.
Monares’ tenure in government spans Republican and Democrat administrations. Before coming to CDC in January, she was the Advance Research Projects Agency for Health (associate director of ARPA-H) and was founding director of the Department of Health Resources and Services’ Innovation Centre. She held other leadership positions in the Department of Homeland Security and the Bureau of Advanced Biomedical Research and Development.
In a news release Thursday, Kennedy said Monales had “an unexpected scientific qualification” and was totally confident in his ability to restore American confidence in his agency.
“It’s a great honor to be joined by Secretary Kennedy and his HHS leadership team,” Monales said in a news release. “I think it’s a privilege to work with the CDC civil servants. We will strengthen and modernize the country’s public health preparation and response through science and innovation. We will work every day at the CDC to make America healthy.”
However, under questions from the senator at her confirmation hearing, Monales appeared to be keeping her distance from Kennedy on two issues: vaccines and fluoride.
In response to questions from Sen. Bernie Sanders, who is independent from Vermont, about the US ending support for the Global Alliance for vaccines and vaccinations, Monales said, “I think vaccines will save lives. I think we need to continue to support vaccine promotions and use.”
When asked if Sanders agreed that there was no scientifically proven link between vaccines and autism, Monares said he had never seen a causal relationship between vaccines and autism.
Regarding fluoride, Monales told Sen. Angela that he “sees it as an important factor for oral health.”
Brooks also asked about the fluorination of public drinking water, including Monares’ own town. “They’re fluorinated there. Are they safe for families in Potomac, Maryland?”
“I think water in Potomac, Maryland is safe,” replied Monares.
One staff member who worked for Monares at ARPA-H described her as a quiet presence. She wasn’t the type of manager with an active presence in Slack or email, they said.
“We all respected her. She was in the government for a long time,” said a staff member who spoke on the condition that she was not named for fear of retaliation.
Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo, who directs the Pandemic Center in Brown University’s Faculty of Public Health, has known Monares for at least 10 years.
“She is a lifelong government scientist and she has moved up the ranks to become a very advanced leader,” Nuzzo said. “She is loyal to serving Americans.”
When Monares got detailed in the White House, they worked together, where they worked on the US National Plan of Action to combat antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
“She got to the heart of a complex policy issue, but she was also able to put together a very diverse set of stakeholders to provide input on that strategy,” Nuzzo said. “I think that’s a great example of what Susan is doing.”
Monales said there are three priorities for the CDC.
First, she wants to improve her trust in the agency and its recommendations. She then focuses on strengthening her public health infrastructure by investing in tools to prevent, detect and respond to threats in near real-time. She has committed to working with state and local public health departments to build a national public health network. Finally, she said she works to generate a prompt, evidence-based response to public health emergencies through consistent, fact-based, timely communication.
While these are valuable goals, she said her biggest concern is whether Monales can act independently without political interference.
“If you need to allow everything that needs to be done, you can’t run an organization as important and large as CDC,” Nuzzo added.
Dr. Richard Besser, former acting director of the CDC, said in a statement that he looks forward to meeting Monares to better understand her plans as he leads the agency. Besser is currently president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
“Dr. Monales not only leads the CDC, she has to fight for it. Our entire country’s public health system relies on the CDC, which has the tools necessary to respond to the pandemic, reduce chronic illnesses, and address health inequality that continues to leave too many communities behind.
CNN’s Meg Tirrell contributed to this report.
