Summary
- Sen. Bernie Sanders demands HHS Secretary RFK Jr. resign.
- Calls follow firing of senior public health officials.
- Four more CDC officials resigned over vaccine policy disputes.
- Sanders says Kennedy spreads dangerous vaccine misinformation.
Kennedy is "endangering the health of the American people now and into the future," according to a guest column in the New York Times by Sanders, an independent senator from Vermont who caucuses with Democrats.
Less than a month into her job, Kennedy fired Susan Monarez, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, this week, further destabilizing the country's primary public health organization. Kennedy had pushed for further restrictions on the availability of some vaccines, but Monarez had refused to implement them, claiming they contradicted scientific data.
Hundreds of their coworkers left the CDC's Atlanta offices in solidarity of the departing leaders, while four other senior CDC officials resigned in protest, alleging anti-vaccine policies and false information propagated by Kennedy and his staff.
Sanders, the ranking member of the Senate’s health committee and an opponent of Kennedy’s confirmation earlier this year, wrote that Kennedy ousted Monarez because she refused “to act as a rubber stamp for his dangerous policies.”
“Despite the overwhelming opposition of the medical community, Secretary Kennedy has continued his longstanding crusade against vaccines and his advocacy of conspiracy theories that have been rejected repeatedly by scientific experts,”
Sanders wrote. He said that vaccines for diseases such as polio and COVID-19 had saved hundreds of millions of lives around the world.
A request for response from a Kennedy representative was not answered.
Last year, Kennedy, a lawyer and well-known opponent of vaccines, waged a failed presidential campaign. He promotes natural foods, exercise, and a healthy diet, but he also regularly discusses his conspiracy beliefs regarding vaccines and other medical issues, which many scientists and doctors claim are unfounded and derived from the fringe.
Kennedy perplexed medical professionals on Wednesday when he claimed to have seen toddlers strolling through airports who, based on their facial expressions and body language, he had identified as "overburdened with mitochondrial challenges, with inflammation."
Kennedy was sworn in as health secretary in February after being nominated by Republican President Donald Trump earlier this year.
What prompted Senator Sanders to call for Kennedy’s resignation?
The firing of CDC Director Susan Monarez after she refused to implement Kennedy’s vaccine restrictions that contradicted scientific consensus. The resignations of four other senior CDC officials, protesting Kennedy’s anti-vaccine agenda and misinformation spreading within the department.
Hundreds of CDC staff staged a walkout in solidarity with those who resigned, signaling deep internal turmoil. Kennedy’s history of spreading vaccine misinformation, undermining established childhood immunization schedules that protect against diseases like measles, chickenpox, and polio.
Kennedy’s cuts to funding for pandemic preparedness research, weakening the country’s ability to respond to future health crises.