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Tensions inside the Department of Health and Human Services have erupted into open revolt, as staff accuse Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr of dangerous leadership and undermining the workforce, demanding his resignation.
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, insisting the health secretary’s attacks on vaccines endangered the lives of all Americans.
The letter, addressed to Congress members, blames Kennedy for turmoil at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), including the firing of the agency’s chief and replacement by a Donald Trump loyalist with no medical or scientific background.
It comes two days after nine former CDC officials wrote in a New York Times guest essay that Kennedy’s leadership, and ousting of the CDC director, Susan Monarez, months after he appointed her, was “unacceptable” and “unlike anything we have ever seen”.
Workforce backlash intensifies
The letter posted on Wednesday by a group calling itself Save HHS assails Kennedy for “endangering the nation’s health by spreading inaccurate health information”.
It cites the resignations of leading health officials, including Demetre Daskalakis, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases; Daniel Jernigan, the agency’s director for emerging and zoonotic infectious diseases; and Debra Houry, its chief medical officer.
The group condemned Kennedy’s installation of “political ideologues who pose as scientific experts” in senior roles, including on a vaccine advisory panel. Several of those appointed have promoted discredited theories, such as the debunked link between vaccines and autism.
Earlier this week, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) severely restricted who could get updated Covid-19 vaccines. Kennedy posted to social media that coronavirus “mandates” from the Biden administration were rescinded and that vaccines would be available only to those at highest risk.
Politicized leadership under fire
“Our oath requires us to speak out when the constitution is violated and the American people are put at risk,” the letter, co-signed by six partner organizations in the medical field, said.
“We warn the president, Congress and the public that Secretary Kennedy’s actions are compromising the health of this nation, and we demand Secretary Kennedy’s resignation.”
It calls for Trump to appoint a new health secretary “whose qualifications and experience ensure that health policy is informed by independent and unbiased peer-reviewed science”.
Trump acknowledged the CDC was being “ripped apart” by the vaccines controversy, though he blamed drug companies for not disclosing “the success or failure” of Covid vaccines.
The administration had already sided with Kennedy over Monarez’s firing, which prompted bipartisan pushback and a walkout of dozens of CDC staff last month. Monarez, a long-serving government expert on infectious diseases, was confirmed in July but dismissed because she was “not aligned with the president’s agenda”, a White House statement said.
The 1,040 HHS employees who signed Wednesday’s letter said they were writing again because Kennedy ignored their earlier communication. An HHS statement accused the group of “an attempt to politicize a tragedy” by linking Kennedy’s rhetoric to an attack on the CDC headquarters in Atlanta on 8 August in which a police officer was killed.
