The former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Susan Monarez, told a Senate panel Wednesday how she was pressured by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to fire top CDC scientists and sign off on vaccine recommendations issued by a panel filled with his appointees. Dr. Monarez also recounted how RFK Jr. accused CDC employees of “killing children” in a meeting with her a week before she was fired. She warned that RFK Jr.’s actions could cause the return of preventable diseases such as “polio, measles, diphtheria and whooping cough.”

Susan Monarez: “The stakes are not theoretical. We already have seen large — the largest measles outbreak in more than 30 years, which claimed the lives of two children. If vaccine protections are weakened, preventable diseases will return. I was fired for holding the line on scientific integrity, but that line does not disappear with me. It now runs through every parent deciding whether to vaccinate a child, every physician counseling a patient, and every American who demands accountability.”

Meanwhile, RFK Jr.’s vaccine advisory committee is set to vote today and tomorrow on changing recommendations on shots against COVID-19, hepatitis B and chickenpox. Two former senior officials at the CDC say the panel could vote on delaying the hepatitis B vaccine currently administered to newborns to age 4. The panel could also vote on restricting access to the COVID-19 shot for people under the age of 75.

On Wednesday, the West Coast Health Alliance, comprised of California, Oregon, Hawaii and Washington state, issued their own COVID-19, flu and RSV vaccine recommendations. California Governor Gavin Newsom also signed a law allowing California to set up its own vaccine schedule, apart from CDC guidance.