More than 1,000 present and former employees of the US Department of Health and Human Services wrote a letter to Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Wednesday, arguing that his management has “put the health of all Americans at risk” and demanding his resignation.
The letter, which was additionally addressed to members of Congress, comes after a tumultuous week at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that noticed its newly confirmed director, Dr. Susan Monarez, declared to be fired by the Trump administration, spurring the resignations of 4 different senior officers at the public health company. Monarez was ousted after refusing to bend to strain from prime HHS officers to log off on potential new vaccine restrictions, in line with folks acquainted with the matter.
“Secretary Kennedy continues to endanger the nation’s health,” the employees wrote in Wednesday’s letter, citing actions together with the facilitation of Monarez’s firing, the resignations of key, longtime CDC leaders, the appointment of what they referred to as “political ideologues” to influential roles in vaccine coverage, and the rescinding of emergency use authorizations for Covid-19 vaccines with out, they mentioned, “providing the data or methods used to reach such a decision.”
HHS didn’t instantly reply to NCS’s request for remark.
Hundreds of present and former HHS staffers additionally wrote to Kennedy final month, after the August 8 shooting at CDC headquarters that killed a police officer, imploring the secretary to cease “spreading inaccurate health information” and to ensure the security of HHS’s workforce.
In response, an HHS spokesperson mentioned in an announcement from the division that Kennedy “is standing firmly with CDC employees” and that “any attempt to conflate widely supported public health reforms with the violence of a suicidal mass shooter is an attempt to politicize a tragedy.”
In an opinion piece revealed Tuesday in the Wall Street Journal, Kennedy claimed that his company is “restoring public trust in the CDC,” which he mentioned failed throughout the Covid-19 pandemic as a result of of “politicized science, bureaucratic inertia and mission creep.” He pledged to return the company to a essential give attention to infectious illness and claimed his substitute of consultants on the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, a transfer that shook public health consultants, is a step towards eliminating “conflicts of interest and bureaucratic complacency.”
The present and former HHS employees who referred to as for his resignation this week, some of whom signed the letter anonymously for worry of retaliation, emphasised that they signed in their very own private capability. In the earlier letter, staffers had requested for a response from Kennedy by September 2; they mentioned Wednesday that he hadn’t responded personally.
“Should he decline to resign,” the employees wrote, “we call upon the president and US Congress to appoint a new Secretary of Health and Human Services, one whose qualifications and experience ensure that health policy is informed by independent and unbiased peer-reviewed science.”
Kennedy has confronted rising strain from some in Congress in addition to public health teams; final week, after Monarez’s ouster, US Sen. Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington and senior member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, referred to as for the White House to fireplace him.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, an unbiased from Vermont, referred to as for Kennedy’s resignation in an opinion piece revealed Saturday in the New York Times, citing his “longstanding crusade against vaccines and his advocacy of conspiracy theories that have been rejected repeatedly by scientific experts.”
Rep. Rosa DeLauro, a Democrat from Connecticut and member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, was the newest lawmaker to name for Kennedy to be fired, at a price range listening to Tuesday.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, the Republican physician from Louisiana who chairs the HELP Committee, mentioned in a post on social media final week that the “high profile departures” from the CDC “will require oversight by the HELP committee.” He then referred to as for the September 18 scheduled assembly of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices to be postponed indefinitely.
“Serious allegations have been made about the meeting agenda, membership, and lack of scientific process being followed,” Cassidy mentioned in a statement. “These decisions directly impact children’s health and the meeting should not occur until significant oversight has been conducted. If the meeting proceeds, any recommendations made should be rejected as lacking legitimacy given the seriousness of the allegations and the current turmoil in CDC leadership.”
Separately, Kennedy is scheduled to testify earlier than the Senate Committee on Finance on Thursday morning in a listening to titled “the president’s 2026 health care agenda.”
NCS’s Adam Cancryn and Sarah Owermohle contributed to this report.