Hundreds of federal health employees are calling on Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to stop “spreading inaccurate health information” following an attack on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Atlanta headquarters earlier this month.
More than 750 current and former staff across HHS signed a letter addressed to Kennedy and members of Congress, warning that his rhetoric has put the department’s employees in danger and contributed to a climate of hostility toward public health workers.
The attack was “not random,” the letter stated, having happened “amid growing mistrust in public institutions, driven by politicized rhetoric that has turned public health professionals from trusted experts into targets of villainization — and now, violence.”
The August 8 shooting left one police officer dead, with bullets striking six CDC buildings. Authorities say the gunman, who reportedly fired 200 rounds and then died by suicide at the scene, had long expressed grievances about the COVID-19 vaccine, which he believed had harmed him. Investigators found writings at his home expressing this sentiment.
Kennedy, a longtime anti-vaccine activist, has falsely called mRNA vaccines “the deadliest ever made” and referred to the CDC as a “cesspool of corruption.”
Employees say such statements lend legitimacy to misinformation and make their jobs more dangerous.
“I think we are all potential targets now,” Dr. Shiv Prasad, an NIH scientist who signed the letter, told ABC News.
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In the letter, employees also accuse Kennedy of being “complicit in dismantling America’s public health infrastructure” and ask him to take specific actions by September 2: stop spreading inaccurate claims; affirm the scientific integrity of the center; and guarantee the safety of HHS staff.
In a statement to NPR, HHS said the secretary “is standing firmly with CDC employees” and that “Any attempt to conflate widely supported public health reforms with the violence of a suicidal mass shooter is an attempt to politicize a tragedy.” But RFK Jr.’s critics say his refusal to acknowledge the role of vaccine misinformation leaves employees exposed.
“This is a major event,” Dr. Fiona Havers, a former CDC official who left earlier this year, told NPR. “It’s critical that the scale of this event is recognized and that people that work in public health, and public health in general, are given much more support than they’re being given right now.”
