Dr. Susan Monarez—Former CDC Director, First Live Interview

Nov 8, 2025

In her first live interview since her tenure as CDC Director, Dr. Susan Monarez, a seasoned microbiologist and immunologist, shares her journey from rural Wisconsin to federal leadership. She discusses the challenges she faced during her brief term, including managing multiple outbreaks and a tragic shooting. Dr. Monarez advocates for a vision of a prevention-focused CDC and introduces her ambitious 90/90/2035 initiative to enhance home-based preventive care. Her commitment to scientific integrity shines through as she reflects on the loss of CDC staff and the importance of resilience.

Ask episode

AI Snips

Chapters

Transcript

Episode notes

INSIGHT

Data-Driven Preparedness Background

Monarez traces her government career from BARDA to ARPA-style agencies and the White House, focusing on anticipatory analytics and preparedness.
That background shapes her belief that data, AI, and decentralized monitoring can transform public health response.

ANECDOTE

Managing Multiple Outbreaks

She recounted directing outbreak responses across five simultaneous events, including Ebola, H5N1, and measles.
Those crisis experiences reinforced her focus on remote monitoring and telehealth as operational necessities.

ANECDOTE

Immediate Trauma After Swearing-In

Dr. Susan Monarez described being sworn in and, five days later, experiencing the CDC shooting that riddled her office with bullets.
She recounted the trauma of staff trapped, a slain officer, and coordinating responses while airborne and in an airport basement.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Get the app

Dr. Susan Monarez was the first CDC Director to be confirmed by the Senate and served from July 31, 2025 – August 27, 2025. Because she refused to give approval to new vaccine recommendations without ever seeing them or their evidence and firing scientists without cause, she was fired. In my view, she’s a hero for standing up for science and speaking truth to power.

In her first live interview since leaving the CDC, we review her background. That includes growing up in rural Wisconsin and getting her college and PhD education at UW-Madison, the latter in microbiology and immunology. She then went on to 18 years of government service with an extensive portfolio of jobs and management at BARDA, the White House, ARPA-H, and others, before becoming Acting Director of the CDC in early 2025.

We discussed the horrific CDC shooting on August 8th, days after she started. Then we reviewed a conversation that we had on August 19th in which she laid out her exciting vision for the future of CDC, emphasizing the goal of prevention (BTW, CDC stands for Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and asked me to help as an advisor. At the time, she was well aware, with growing tension, that her tenure at CDC might be limited.

I asked about her perspective for the jobs of 4,300 people at CDC who have been terminated, which account for more than 1/3rd of the workforce, no less the gutting of the budget.

Then we got into what she learned from this ordeal and her plans for the future, which includes a very ambitious initiative: 90/90/2035. As you’ll see from our conversation, Dr. Monarez is exceptionally resilient and an optimist. She’s got lots to do in the years ahead to carry out her mission of promoting human health!

Dr. Monarez just started a Substack The Road Best Traveled so you can follow her there. It was a real privilege for me to do this interview with her. In deep admiration of her willingness to not only take on the job of CDC Director in tough circumstances, her professionalism during testimony at the Senate committee hearing, her impressive yet unrealized vision for transforming the CDC, and refusing to cave to immense pressure from the HHS Secretary to move ahead with his agenda.

Thank you Julie, Stephen B. Thomas, PhD, David Dansereau, MSPT, Dr. Sara Wolfson, Vau Geha, and >500 others for tuning into my live video with The Road Best Traveled!

Thanks for being a Ground Truths subscriber! Please spread the word.

Get full access to Ground Truths at erictopol.substack.com/subscribe