Criticism of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of Health and Human Services, is growing in the wake of contentious congressional hearings about vaccine policy and staff upheaval at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
On Thursday, the American Public Health Association, the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society and the American Academy of HIV Medicine were among 21 medical and public health groups issuing a joint statement calling on him to resign.
"We are gravely concerned that American people will needlessly suffer and die as a result of policies that turn away from sound interventions,” the Infectious Diseases Society of America wrote. “After careful consideration, we insist on Kennedy’s resignation to restore the integrity, credibility and science-driven mission of HHS and all its agencies.”
The statement cited several specific actions that Kennedy has taken as secretary in the areas of food safety, diagnostic testing, infection tracking, vaccination, emergency response and support for local and state health departments that they say put individuals' health at risk. These actions have weakened initiatives that promote healthy behaviors; preventive care; and community-based projects to prevent and manage chronic conditions such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer, they added.
The call for dismissal comes after a turbulent week for Kennedy and the federal agencies he leads. Dr. Susan Monarez was fired as head of the CDC and replaced on an interim basis by Jim O'Neill, currently a deputy HHS secretary.
Several of the agency’s top scientists resigned in response, and nine former CDC directors wrote a newspaper op-ed piece criticizing Kennedy’s leadership of the agency.
In August, several hundred current and former HHS employees similarly signed an open letter criticizing Kennedy for “dangerous and deceitful statements and actions” that they said villainize public health workers and contributed an attack on the CDC's headquarters. The number of signatories since has grown to 6,370, including 1,000 from the HHS.
Andrew Nixon, communications director for the HHS, responded to the accusations in a statement to Fierce Healthcare.
"Secretary Kennedy has been clear: the CDC has been broken for a long time,” he said. “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. That commitment to evidence-based science is why, in just seven months, he 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."
© Arc, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to TMSalesOperations@arc-network.com. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.