Over 1,000 current and former employees of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) are demanding that Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. resign.
The mutiny inside America’s health system comes after Kennedy fired the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Susan Monarez last month.
In a letter released on Wednesday, the employees accused RFK Jr. of replacing career health officials at HHS, such as Monarez, with ‘political ideologues,’
‘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,’ the letter says.
The letter then calls on President Donald Trump and the Congress to remove Kennedy from his position if he chose not to resign.
‘Should he decline to resign, we call upon the President and U.S. Congress to appoint a new Secretary of Health and Human Services, one whose qualifications and experience ensure that health policy is informed by independent and unbiased peer-reviewed science.’
‘We expect those in leadership to act when the health of Americans is at stake,’ it continues.
The HHS employees claim Kennedy is filling positions of power in the department with staffers ‘who pose as scientific experts and manipulate data to fit predetermined conclusions.’
The letter was signed by some staffers who remained anonymous because ‘of well-founded fear of retaliation and threats to personal safety.’
Last month, HHS employees demanded Kennedy advocate for more protections for health officials following an August 8th shooting at the CDC headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia.
A shooter in Atlanta fired 500 rounds at the CDC headquarters, claiming he was upset by the COVID vaccines.
Police officer David Rose, 33, died in hospital after he was wounded from the gunfire. However, no civilians were injured or killed during the shooting.
After the shooting, Kennedy visited the CDC headquarters to give his condolences to the family of the slain officer.
‘We are deeply saddened by the tragic shooting at CDC’s Atlanta campus that took the life of officer David Rose,’ Kennedy said at the time.
‘We stand with his wife and three children and the entire CDC family.’
The group Save HHS organized the signing of the letter and claims they have not received a response from Kennedy.
‘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,’ HHS Communications Director Andrew Nixon said to the Daily Mail.
‘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.’