Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s enemies list keeps getting longer as calls for his resignation grow.Bob Daemmrich/ZUMA
It hasn’t been a great week for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
On Saturday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.), ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, authored an op-ed in the New York Times calling for Kennedy to resign, as my colleague Inae Oh wrote. The next day, nine former directors of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) joined in, alleging in another Times op-ed that Kennedy “is endangering every American’s health.”
More calls for his ouster came Wednesday, when more than 1,000 current and former HHS staffers published a letter demanding Kennedy’s resignation. “We believe health policy should be based on strong, evidence-based principles rather than partisan politics,” the letter states. “But under Secretary Kennedy’s leadership, HHS policies are placing the health of all Americans at risk, regardless of their politics.”
The letter cites several of the same examples as the New York Times op-ed written by the former CDC directors: Kennedy has fired thousands of HHS workers, boosted unproven treatments for measles while undermining vaccines, backed Medicaid cuts, and, of course, fired former CDC Director Susan Monarez, which led to the resignations of other top CDC officials.
The letter from the former HHS staffers also mentions additional issues, like Kennedy’s habit of “appointing political ideologues who pose as scientific experts”—such as vaccine skeptic David Geier to investigate long debunked links between vaccines and autism—and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)’s recent decision to limit access to the Covid vaccines. If Kennedy declines to resign, they write, President Donald Trump and Congress should replace him with someone “whose qualifications and experience ensure that health policy is informed by independent and unbiased peer-reviewed science.”
The signatories, part of a group called Save HHS, addressed the letter to members of Congress. Their names were reportedly provided to lawmakers but are not listed publicly “in order to safeguard the privacy and security” of the signatories, according to the group. Those who signed on worked at sub-agencies including the FDA, the CDC, and the National Institutes of Health.
In a statement provided to Mother Jones, Andrew Nixon, communications director for HHS, claimed that “[Kennedy] and the HHS team have accomplished more than any health secretary in history in the fight to end the chronic disease epidemic and Make America Healthy Again.” Spokespeople for the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But Kennedy and administration officials won’t be able to ignore the growing calls for his resignation or firing for long.
On Thursday, he’s due to testify before the Senate Finance Committee, Politico first reported last week. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the committee’s top Democrat, wrote to Kennedy last week alleging that “transparency and communication from HHS has been selective at best and deceptive and deeply harmful at worst” and demanding that Kennedy “correct course and deliver on the promise of ‘radical transparency'” at the Thursday hearing.
