Health Department Employees Call for Kennedy’s Resignation

More than 1,000 current and former staff members of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have signed a letter urging Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to step down from his role.

This demand comes after the recent termination of Susan Monarez, who was the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In their letter, the employees expressed concern, stating that health policies should be grounded in sound, evidence-based practices rather than influenced by political agendas.

“We believe health policy should be based in 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,” they wrote.

In the letter, they also suggested that if Kennedy does not resign, the President and U.S. Congress should appoint a new Secretary who is committed to unbiased, peer-reviewed scientific guidance in health policy.

Despite this, HHS Communications Director Andrew Nixon dismissed the letter in comments made to Fox News.

“Secretary Kennedy has been clear: the CDC has been broken for a long time. Restoring it as the world’s most trusted guardian of public health will take sustained reform and more personnel changes. From his first day in office, he pledged to check his assumptions at the door—and he asked every HHS colleague to do the same,” he stated, referring to the administration’s commitment to evidence-based science and improvements in handling health issues.

The call for Kennedy’s resignation also follows a recent editorial by Senator Bernie Sanders, who criticized Kennedy’s leadership and warned that current actions jeopardize public health.

“Mr. Kennedy and the rest of the Trump administration tell us, over and over, that they want to Make America Healthy Again… The problem is that since coming into office, President Trump and Mr. Kennedy have done exactly the opposite,” Sanders remarked.

Sanders alleged that Kennedy dismissed Monarez for not supporting his controversial policies, emphasizing that Kennedy has been persistently opposed to vaccines and has championed conspiracy theories dismissed by medical experts.

“Despite the overwhelming opposition of the medical community, Secretary Kennedy has continued his longstanding crusade against vaccines… One of his leading ‘experts’… had his medical license revoked,” Sanders asserted.

In a response to the criticism, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the firing of Monarez, noting that Kennedy has the discretion to dismiss personnel aligned against his mission.

Reportedly, Monarez refused to sign off on recommendations from Kennedy’s newly formed vaccine advisory panel, which she believed included individuals with “anti-science views.” Her noncompliance was cited as a reason for her termination, which she feared would diminish trust in the CDC and vaccines.

“The president and Secretary Kennedy are committed to restoring trust and transparency and credibility to the CDC… strengthening our public health system and restoring it to its core mission of protecting Americans from communicable diseases,” Leavitt concluded.