Nearly each Democratic member of the Senate Finance Committee referred to as on Robert F. Kennedy Jr to step down as secretary of the Division of Well being and Human Companies following a serious shakeup on the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention (CDC).
Eleven of the 12 Democratic Senators on the committee issued a press release Thursday demanding his resignation shortly earlier than Kennedy was scheduled to testify earlier than the committee about latest federal vaccine coverage adjustments in addition to the firing and resignations of a number of prime CDC officers.
“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 guard public well being and “endangers the lives of all Americans” notably youngsters, the disabled and different weak People.
“Robert Kennedy should resign, and if he doesn’t, Trump ought to hearth him earlier than extra American households are harm by his reckless disregard for science and the reality,” the senators wrote.
Kennedy has labored to overtake the nation’s federal well being businesses in the course of the seven months he has served as secretary. In that point, he has reluctantly endorsed the measles vaccine throughout a Texas outbreak, canceled greater than $500 million in grants and contracts for mRNA analysis, lowered entry to COVID-19 vaccines, changed members of the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel and fired now-former CDC Director Susan Monarez.
Kennedy mentioned that the company’s management change was “absolutely necessary” to revive the company to its “gold standard” of defending People from infectious illness.
“That’s why we’d like daring, competent and inventive new management at CDC. Individuals are ready and keen to chart a brand new course,” the well being chief mentioned.
Monarez, in an op-ed revealed Thursday, denounced Kennedy as a long-time vaccine skeptic, and claimed she let go after refusing to preapprove the suggestions for a vaccine advisory panel “newly filled with people who have publicly expressed antivaccine rhetoric.”
Kennedy denied these claims and referred to as the previous company director a liar throughout a heated trade with Senate Finance Committee Rating 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 of their assertion.
The one Democratic member of the Senate Finance Committee who didn’t signal the assertion was Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), though he has since expressed dissatisfaction with Kennedy.
“I voted against Secretary Kennedy’s nomination,” Whitehouse mentioned in a press release to The Hill. “He never should have been confirmed.”
The White Home didn’t instantly reply to The Hill’s request for remark.
