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Several former directors and former acting directors at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) condemned Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in a joint New York Times guest essay on Monday.
In the essay, the nine officials across Democratic and Republican administrations accused the Trump appointee of weakening the nation’s public health system.
“What Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has done to the CDC and to our nation’s public health system over the past several months—culminating in his decision to fire Dr. Susan Monarez as CDC director days ago—is unlike anything we have ever seen at the agency, and unlike anything our country has ever experienced,” they wrote.
Monarez was removed as the head of the agency last week, less than a month after her confirmation. She reportedly refused Kennedy’s directives to adopt new limitations on the availability of some vaccines, including approvals for COVID-19 shots.
Four other senior CDC officials resigned, pointing to Monarez’s removal, as well as Kennedy’s vaccine policies, as the reasons for their exit. Additionally, hundreds of workers at the agency also walked out of the CDC’s headquarters in Atlanta last month in support of their former colleagues.
The Times guest essay’s authors – William Foege, William Roper, David Satcher, Jeffrey Koplan, Richard Besser, Tom Frieden, Anne Schuchat, Rochelle P. Walensky and Mandy K. Cohen – slammed Kennedy, stating he “has fired thousands of federal health workers and severely weakened programs designed to protect Americans from cancer, heart attacks, strokes, lead poisoning, injury, violence and more.”
“Amid the largest measles outbreak in the United States in a generation, he’s focused on unproven ‘treatments’ while downplaying vaccines,” they wrote. “He canceled investments in promising medical research that will leave us ill-prepared for future health emergencies. He replaced experts on federal health advisory committees with unqualified individuals who share his dangerous and unscientific views.”
They also blasted the secretary for ending U.S. support of global vaccination programs and justifying the move with “flawed research” and “inaccurate statements.” Additionally, they said he supported federal legislation that would cause “millions of people with health insurance through Medicaid to lose their coverage.”
The collection of former directors said that, because of these actions, rural Americans and people with disabilities will have less access to health care, lower-income Americans will have less access to treatment, and children could lose access to “lifesaving vaccines.”
In his own New York Times guest essay published on Saturday, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., called for Kennedy to resign after Monarez’s exit.
“Despite the overwhelming opposition of the medical community, Secretary Kennedy has continued his longstanding crusade against vaccines and his advocacy of conspiracy theories that have been rejected repeatedly by scientific experts,” Sanders wrote.
HHS did not immediately reply to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
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