Fired CDC director Susan Monarez clashed with RFK Jr on vaccine policy

The revelation and interviews with top officials who resigned in the wake of the director's firing underscored the growing division over the US approach to public health and the upheaval at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which protects US health and has played a global role in eradicating smallpox, reducing polio, and controlling HIV/AIDS.

Fellow CDC employees cheered the three departing officials as they left the Atlanta campus on Thursday in a show of defiance toward Kennedy and his unscientific claims about vaccines.

Richard Besser, former acting director of the CDC, told reporters that he spoke with Monarez on Wednesday.