Aug. 20 (UPI) — Hundreds of staff from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services told Congress that HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is sharing false health info with the public and called on him to step up protection of public health professionals.
They accused Kennedy of complicity in “dismantling America’s public health infrastructure and endangering the nation’s health.”
More than 750 current and former HHS employees on Wednesday called on Kennedy to stop “spreading inaccurate health information” and prioritize the safety of public servants in the health sector in the wake of this month’s fatal shooting at the Atlanta headquarters of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“The attack came amid growing mistrust in public institutions, driven by politicized rhetoric that has turned public health professionals from trusted experts into targets of villainization,” the letter to members of Congress read in part.
“And now, violence,” it added.
The “Save HHS” crew accused Kennedy, 71, of endangering the lives of his HHS employees with his own words and rhetoric, and pointed to multiple specific accusations in the letter of Kennedy doing so in the public square.
According to law enforcement, the alleged shooter was skeptical of the COVID-19 vaccine and assumed he was harmed by it. He fired hundreds of rounds with about 200 striking six different CDC facilities across its Atlanta campus.
CDC Director Susan Monarez told HHS staffers during a 10,000-person virtual call the danger of misinformation had “now led to deadly consequences.”
Kennedy met with Monarez two days after the shooting.
The HHS crew noted the recent CDC attack on Aug. 8, where DeKalb County police officer David Rose was fatally shot was “not random.”
“If the very people that are supposed to be protecting Americans are not safe, then no American is safe,” Dr. Anne Schuchat, former principal deputy director of the CDC, said in a statement.
The letter also noted the HHS workforce wanted to honor Rose and his memory.
But it also pointed to fears of “retaliation” and issues of “personal safety.”
“We sign this declaration in our own personal capacities, on our personal time, and without the use of government equipment, as protected by our First Amendment rights,” they stated.
Health experts and other officials have rung alarm bells over Kennedy’s deployment of health data universally known as false for years, even before U.S. President Donald Trump nominated Kennedy to be the nation’s health chief.
Wednesday’s letter follows a similar letter to Congress in January signed by more than 17,000 U.S. doctors via the Chicago-based Committee to Protect Health Care, which stated Kennedy was a danger to America’s national healthcare system.