Family members of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have joined those demanding he resign, calling him a threat to public health because of his attempts to undercut proven vaccine science.
His nephew Joseph P. Kennedy III and sister Kerry Kennedy each ripped into their relative on Friday — after RFK Jr. tried to defend scaling back the department’s COVID-19 vaccine coverage recommendations in an emotionally charged, three-hour congressional committee hearing. He also had to answer for the turmoil roiling the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as director Susan Monarez was ousted just weeks after taking the job, sparking four other high-profile resignations. They and previous departing officials cited the anti-vaxxer’s stance on the proven preventative.
Last week 1,000 former HHS workers signed a petition saying he should resign, joining several members of Congress and a host of medical experts.
“Robert Kennedy Jr. is a threat to the health and well-being of every American,” Joe Kennedy wrote on X the day after the hearing. As a purveyor of misinformation and sower of confusion, RFK is not adequately “protecting the public health of our country and its people,” the secretary’s nephew said. “At yesterday’s hearing, he chose to do the opposite: to dismiss science, mislead the public, sideline experts and sow confusion.”
The essential values of “moral clarity, scientific expertise, and leadership rooted in fact” required of anyone taking on current challenges to public health in the U.S. are simply “not present in the Secretary’s office,” Joe Kennedy said. “He must resign.”
Kerry Kennedy reposted that stance on her X account — and added a scathing statement of her own, pointing out that vaccines have been in use since 1796 and have saved millions of lives.
“Vaccines work. This is not up for debate,” Kerry Kennedy wrote. “Medical decisions belong in the hands of trained and licensed professionals, not incompetent and misguided leadership. The decimation of critical institutions, like the NIH and the CDC, will lead to the loss of innocent lives. This means that children, mothers, fathers, and those you love are at risk now, like never before.”
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. for a the Senate Finance Committee hearing at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on September 4. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
Since being confirmed in February — after a promise not to change federal vaccine policy — RFK Jr. has since wrongly claimed the science supporting vaccines, especially for COVID, is “unproven,” fired the 17-member panel that advises the CDC on immunization strategy, replacing them with vaccine critics, and slashed at least 10,000 jobs at HHS and CDC.
“None of us will be spared the pain he is inflicting,” Joe Kennedy wrote. “It doesn’t matter how rich or powerful you are or what state you live in – the heartbreak of watching a loved one fall ill knows no borders.”
With News Wire Services
