More than 1,000 current and former employees of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have demanded the resignation of Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, accusing him of endangering public health through his anti-vaccine policies. In a letter addressed to Congress, the group Save HHS said Kennedy had installed political ideologues in key roles and ignored warnings as resignations mounted at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The letter, published on Wednesday, follows the departure of several senior CDC officials, including Demetre Daskalakis, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases; Daniel Jernigan, director for emerging and zoonotic infectious diseases; and Debra Houry, the agency’s chief medical officer. It also criticises Kennedy’s appointment of individuals with no medical or scientific background to influential vaccine advisory panels, some of whom have promoted discredited theories linking vaccines to autism.
The signatories, who include former and current HHS staff, said Kennedy’s actions were “compromising the health of this nation” and called on President Donald Trump to appoint a new health secretary with appropriate qualifications. The letter states: “We believe health policy should be based on strong, evidence-based principles rather than partisan politics. But under Secretary Kennedy’s leadership, HHS policies are placing the health of all Americans at risk, regardless of their politics.”
The controversy escalated after the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) restricted access to updated Covid-19 vaccines, with Kennedy posting on social media that vaccine mandates had been rescinded and that shots would only be available to those at highest risk. Trump has expressed displeasure at the turmoil, acknowledging in a social media post that the CDC was being “ripped apart” by the vaccines controversy, but blaming drug manufacturers for not disclosing vaccine data.
HHS communications director Andrew Nixon defended Kennedy, saying the CDC had been “broken for a long time” and that restoring it as a trusted public health guardian required “sustained reform and more personnel changes”. He added that Kennedy had pledged to base decisions on evidence-based science.
