Jerome Adams, who served as Donald Trump's surgeon general from 2017 to 2021, has said the president should "absolutely" fire health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, describing his vaccine policies as dangerous and accusing him of endangering America. In an interview with CNN on Saturday, Adams said Kennedy's moves to limit access to vaccines, including against Covid-19, were putting the nation at risk.
Adams's remarks follow a stormy Senate committee hearing on Thursday, during which Democrats called for Kennedy's resignation or dismissal, accusing him of ignorance and a "reckless disregard for science and the truth". Republican senator Bill Cassidy, who had been a crucial vote to confirm Kennedy, criticised him for "effectively denying people the vaccine" through his policy positions, to which Kennedy retorted: "You're wrong."
Adams also expressed shock at new restrictions introduced by the Food and Drug Administration last month on eligibility for the latest Covid-19 vaccination. He said he hoped Trump would "begin to see the danger to America" of Kennedy's leanings and not remain "in thrall" to his health secretary.
On Friday, Adams co-authored a bipartisan opinion piece in USA Today with two other former surgeons general, Joycelyn Elders and Richard Carmona, warning that Kennedy's actions to shake up the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) "jeopardize not only the institution's integrity but also the health and wellbeing of millions of Americans". They described the CDC as a "cornerstone of public health" and said the recent turbulence was "a matter of life and death".
The CDC has been in turmoil since late August, when the Trump administration fired its director, Susan Monarez, after only weeks in the post, reportedly over vaccine policy. Several senior CDC leaders resigned in protest, following Kennedy's earlier dismissal of all 17 members of the CDC's advisory committee on immunisation practices. Kennedy has also faced calls to resign from his nephew, former Massachusetts congressman Joe Kennedy III, who said the health secretary was "a threat to the health and wellbeing of every American".
