{"id":116120,"date":"2025-09-03T16:54:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T16:54:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/116120\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T16:54:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T16:54:07","slug":"more-than-1000-health-workers-urge-kennedy-to-quit-over-anti-vax-policies-robert-f-kennedy-jr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/116120\/","title":{"rendered":"More than 1,000 health workers urge Kennedy to quit over anti-vax policies | Robert F Kennedy Jr"},"content":{"rendered":"

A letter published on Wednesday from more than 1,000 past and present workers of the Department of Health and Human Services department (HHS) has demanded the resignation of Robert F Kennedy Jr<\/a>, insisting the health secretary\u2019s attacks on vaccines endangered the lives of all Americans.<\/p>\n

The hard-hitting letter<\/a>, addressed to Congress members, blames Kennedy for turmoil at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention<\/a> (CDC), including the firing of the agency\u2019s chief and replacement by a Donald Trump<\/a> loyalist with no medical or scientific background<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It comes two days after nine former CDC officials<\/a> wrote in a New York Times guest essay that Kennedy\u2019s leadership, and ousting of the CDC director, Susan Monarez, months after he appointed her, was \u201cunacceptable\u201d and \u201cunlike anything we have ever seen\u201d.<\/p>\n

The letter posted on Wednesday by a group calling itself Save HHS assails Kennedy for \u201cendangering the nation\u2019s health by spreading inaccurate health information\u201d.<\/p>\n

It cites the resignations of other leading health officials, including Demetre Daskalakis, director of the CDC\u2019s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases; Daniel Jernigan, the agency\u2019s director for emerging and zoonotic infectious diseases; and Debra Houry, its chief medical officer.<\/p>\n

It also offers sharp criticism of Kennedy\u2019s installation of \u201cpolitical ideologues who pose as scientific experts\u201d in leading roles, including on a key vaccine advisory panel<\/a>. Several members have touted discredited theories, such as the long-disproven link between vaccines and autism.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) severely restricted<\/a> who could get updated Covid-19 vaccines, with Kennedy posting to social media<\/a> that coronavirus \u201cmandates\u201d from the Biden administration were rescinded and that vaccines would be available only to those at highest risk.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur oath requires us to speak out when the constitution is violated and the American people are put at risk,\u201d the letter, co-signed by six partner organizations in the medical field, said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe warn the president, Congress and the public that Secretary Kennedy\u2019s actions are compromising the health of this nation, and we demand Secretary Kennedy\u2019s resignation.\u201d<\/p>\n

It calls for Trump to appoint a new health secretary \u201cwhose qualifications and experience ensure that health policy is informed by independent and unbiased peer-reviewed science\u201d.<\/p>\n

Trump this week expressed his displeasure at the chaos engulfing the CDC, acknowledging in a social media post<\/a> that the agency was being \u201cripped apart\u201d by the vaccines controversy. But he claimed drug manufacturers were to blame for allegedly not revealing publicly \u201cthe success or failure\u201d of Covid vaccines.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration also previously sided with Kennedy over Monarez\u2019s firing, which prompted bipartisan pushback<\/a> and a walkout of dozens of CDC staff last month. Monarez, a long-serving government expert on infectious diseases, was confirmed in July, but fired because she was \u201cnot aligned with the president\u2019s agenda\u201d, a White House statement said.<\/p>\n

The 1,040 former and current HHS employees who signed Wednesday\u2019s letter said they were writing again because Kennedy ignored their earlier communication<\/a>. A statement issued by HHS accused the group of \u201can attempt to politicize a tragedy\u201d by claiming Kennedy\u2019s vaccine rhetoric played a role in an attack on the CDC headquarters<\/a> in Atlanta on 8 August in which a police officer was killed.<\/p>\n

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In its new letter, the group said that the HHS workforce is non-partisan, \u201cimplementing science-based policies developed under both Republican and Democratic administrations\u201d.<\/p>\n

It said: \u201cWe believe health policy should be based on strong, evidence-based principles rather than partisan politics. But under Secretary Kennedy\u2019s leadership, HHS policies are placing the health of all Americans at risk, regardless of their politics.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a statement, the HHS communications director, Andrew Nixon, said: \u201cSecretary Kennedy has been clear: the CDC has been broken for a long time. Restoring it as the world\u2019s most trusted guardian of public health will take sustained reform and more personnel changes.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom his first day in office, he pledged to check his assumptions at the door \u2013 and he asked every HHS colleague to do the same. That commitment to evidence-based science is why, in just seven months, he and the HHS team have accomplished more than any health secretary in history in the fight to end the chronic disease epidemic and Make America Healthy Again.\u201d<\/p>\n

The HHS employees signed their letter \u201cin our own personal capacities, on our personal time, and without the use of government equipment\u201d. It said \u201ccountless others\u201d across HHS shared their concerns but \u201cchose not to sign out of well-founded fear of retaliation and threats to personal safety\u201d.<\/p>\n

Up to 30 workers at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) were placed on leave<\/a> last week after they publicly signed a letter of dissent over Trump\u2019s dismantling of the agency and fears it would lead to a disaster like Hurricane Katrina in 2005.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A letter published on Wednesday from more than 1,000 past and present workers of the Department of Health…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116121,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[64,63,137,500],"class_list":["post-116120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-health","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116120\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}