New Delhi, Aug. 29 -- Susan Monarez, the recently ousted director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), refused to fire top agency leaders and approve vaccine changes pushed by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s hand-picked panel, according to Richard Besser, CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and former acting CDC director, Politico reported.

Besser told reporters on Thursday that he spoke with Monarez on Wednesday afternoon, just hours before HHS announced on social media that she was "no longer director," the news outlet stated.

"She said that there were two things she would never do in the job," the news outlet quoted Basser as saying. "She said she was asked to do both of those, one in terms of firin...