Hearings to examine the nomination of Susan Monarez, of Wisconsin, to be Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Department of Health and Human Services.
2025-06-25
Source: Congress.gov
Summary
The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee held a hearing on the future of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, focusing on rebuilding public trust through scientific integrity. Dr. Menares, a nominee for CDC director, emphasized the need for transparency, science-based decision-making, and modernized public health infrastructure. Key topics included concerns over the dismissal of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which shifted to include vaccine skeptics, and the potential consequences of massive healthcare cuts that could impact rural hospitals and millions of Americans. Witnesses discussed the importance of vaccines in preventing deadly diseases like measles, the risks of cutting public health programs, and the need for balanced, evidence-based public health guidance. The hearing also covered emerging health threats, antimicrobial resistance, and the role of technology in public health, underscoring the importance of maintaining robust, accessible healthcare services across the country.
Participants
Transcript
We're waiting for our witness, our nominee. We do. The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will please come to order. Thank you, Dr. Menares, for appearing before the committee. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention failed to communicate crucial information to the American people. When the public needed to know the most up-to-date information on the outbreak, they relied on a Johns Hopkins data dashboard because the CDC did not have that information readily available. The agency failed to detect and anticipate the spread of COVID-19 even when the virus had already reached the United States. And under President Biden, instead of acting impartially, CDC coordinated with outside political groups like teachers unions, allowing them to influence pandemic health guidance. By the way, the teachers' unions then used CDC guidance, which they helped write, as justification to push for continued closure of schools nationwide when other public health officials were saying it was safe to open, a great detriment to American children's learning and mental health. So when the American people needed the CDC the most, the agency failed. Bureaucratic decision-making impeded CDC's ability to improve Americans' health, and continued reforms are needed to regain public trust.
Earlier this year, Senate Republicans launched a working group to develop legislative solutions to improve the CDC. As a public health official for nearly 20 years, Dr. Menares brings insight that can guide this process. I look forward to working together if she is confirmed. For the last four years, Republicans have understood the deficiencies in the CDC and desired change, but restoring Americans' trust in the CDC requires more than policy. It requires a strong leader committed to achieving permanent culture change within the agency. This is the time with President Trump and a Republican Congress to put someone in charge of the CDC who can institute systemic change and ensure the agency operates effectively to benefit Americans. Above all, the CDC director must ensure agency decisions are transparent and based on science. I want to acknowledge that the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, the ACIP, is meeting as we speak. The CDC director plays a vital role in this process, having the power to choose whether to adopt ACIP recommendations. I want President Trump to be successful in his efforts to restore trust in our public health system. Given that there is no confirmed CDC director, along with an ACIP panel which has very few members, many of whom lack broad vaccine and immunological expertise, there are concerns about the rushed nature of this process. To be clear, there's a difference between reviewing recommendations about the appropriateness of a patient receiving an immunization and broadly declaring a vaccine to be dangerous or unsafe if received without the evidence to support such a declaration. If confirmed, Dr. Menares, you will be tasked with strengthening public trust in CDC, ensuring decisions on immunizations are rooted in the gold standard of science. This mission is crucial to your success and the success of the entire Trump administration. I want to work with you and with Secretary Robert Kennedy to ensure the agency is successful in restoring its credibility and in making America healthy again.
The Director also needs to ensure the agency is nimble and not caught flat-footed in response to public health threats, while also addressing drivers of disease to make America healthy again. The CDC's unique capabilities in data analysis, laboratory science, and public health responses are key to achieving President Trump's goal. Continued data modernization while preserving privacy will be crucial to restoring faith in the CDC. Dr. Menares and I have talked about these issues at length. I look forward to continuing our discussion. With that, I recognize Senator Sanders. Chairman, thanks very much. Dr. Menares, thanks very much for being here. Before I comment on your nomination to become CDC director, I want to say a few words about about maybe the most important and disastrous healthcare legislation to come before Congress in a very, very long time. That is the so-called reconciliation bill, which the Senate will be dealing with in a few days. So let's be clear. This legislation, Dr. Monarez, if enacted, would make the largest cut to healthcare in our nation's history in order to pay for the largest tax breaks for billionaires in our nation's history. At a time when everybody understands, including I suspect every member of this committee, that our current healthcare system is broken, is dysfunctional, this bill would make it even worse. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated this legislation would cut Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act by over $1 trillion. Those cuts, along with ending the enhanced premium credits, will lead to 16 million Americans losing their health insurance. In other words, right now, we are the only major country on Earth not to guarantee health care to all people.
85 million are uninsured or underinsured, and this bill makes a awful situation even worse. Researchers at the Yale School of Public Health and healthcare economists at the University of Pennsylvania have found that these healthcare policies would cause over 50,000 Americans to die unnecessarily every single year. That's what happens when you throw 16 million low-income and working-class people off the healthcare they have. That's what we're dealing with here, folks. In order to give tax breaks to billionaires, we're endangering the lives of 50,000 Americans every year. Not only would millions lose their health insurance, and tens of thousands of our constituents needlessly die if this legislation is enacted, rural hospitals, and I come from one of the most rural states in America,
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