Almost every Democratic member of the Senate Finance Committee called on Robert F. Kennedy Jr to step down as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services following a major shakeup at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Eleven of the 12 Democratic Senators on the committee issued a statement Thursday demanding his resignation shortly before Kennedy was scheduled to testify before the committee about recent federal vaccine policy changes as well as the firing and resignations of several top CDC officials.
“Robert Kennedy was unfit to serve as the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services before he was on the job, which is why every Democratic member of the Senate Finance Committee opposed his nomination,” the members wrote.
The group added that Kennedy has failed to protect public health and “endangers the lives of all Americans” particularly children, the disabled and other vulnerable Americans.
“Robert Kennedy must resign, and if he doesn’t, Trump should fire him before more American families are hurt by his reckless disregard for science and the truth,” the senators wrote.
Kennedy has worked to overhaul the nation’s federal health agencies during the seven months he has served as secretary. In that time, he has reluctantly endorsed the measles vaccine during a Texas outbreak, canceled more than $500 million in grants and contracts for mRNA research, reduced access to COVID-19 vaccines, replaced members of the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel and fired now-former CDC Director Susan Monarez.
Kennedy said that the agency’s leadership change was “absolutely necessary” to restore the agency to its “gold standard” of protecting Americans from infectious disease.
“That’s why we need bold, competent and creative new leadership at CDC. People are able and willing to chart a new course,” the health chief said.
Monarez, in an op-ed published Thursday, denounced Kennedy as a long-time vaccine skeptic, and claimed she let go after refusing to preapprove the recommendations for a vaccine advisory panel “newly filled with people who have publicly expressed antivaccine rhetoric.”
Kennedy denied these claims and called the former agency director a liar during a heated exchange with Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden (D-Ore) on Thursday.
“By discarding well-established science related to vaccines, elevating conspiracy theorists and self-interested charlatans to positions of public trust, and presiding over the largest cut to American health care in history, Robert Kennedy has reinforced every fear families had about him,” the senators wrote in their statement.
The only Democratic member of the Senate Finance Committee who did not sign the statement was Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), although he has since expressed dissatisfaction with Kennedy.
“I voted against Secretary Kennedy’s nomination,” Whitehouse said in a statement to The Hill. “He never should have been confirmed.”
The White House did not immediately respond to The Hill’s request for comment.
