More than 750 current and former staff of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) are calling on Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to stop “spreading inaccurate health information” and do more to protect public health professionals in the wake of a shooting at the headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) earlier this month.
The letter sent Wednesday to Kennedy and members of Congress accused the secretary of endangering the nation’s health and the lives of his employees with his rhetoric. The staff noted the Aug. 8 attack “was not random.”
“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—and now, violence,” the letter noted.
Law enforcement officials said the alleged shooter was distrustful of the COVID-19 vaccine and thought he had been harmed by it. The shooter allegedly fired 500 rounds, and about 200 struck six different CDC buildings, pockmarking windows across the main Atlanta campus.
DeKalb County police officer David Rose was fatally shot, and the letter writers said they wanted to honor him.
“CDC is a public health leader in America’s defense against health threats at home and abroad. When a federal health agency is under attack, America’s health is under attack. When the federal workforce is not safe, America is not safe,” the letter stated.
The staffers emphasized they signed the letter in their personal capacities, and some remained anonymous “out of fear of retaliation and personal safety.”
The signatories said Kennedy is “complicit in dismantling America’s public health infrastructure and endangering the nation’s health.”
They cited his rhetoric questioning the integrity of the CDC’s workforce, disbanding of an expert vaccine advisory panel, false and misleading claims about the measles vaccine and mRNA vaccines, and the agency’s firing of thousands of employees in a “destroy-first-and-ask-questions-later manner.”
HHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Kennedy posted a message to social media the day after the shooting expressing support for public health workers.
“No one should face violence while working to protect the health of others,” he wrote. “We are actively supporting CDC staff on the ground and across the agency. Public health workers show up every day with purpose — even in moments of grief and uncertainty.”
Kennedy visited CDC headquarters and met with the agency’s new director, Susan Monarez, two days after the shooting, a time when most employees were told to stay home and telework.
Kennedy has yet to address misinformation about COVID vaccines. When asked directly about a plan to quell misinformation and prevent something like the CDC shooting from happening again during a Scripps News interview, Kennedy deflected any direct link.
The letter asked Kennedy to “cease and publicly disavow the ongoing dissemination of false and misleading claims about vaccines, infectious disease transmission, and America’s public health institutions;” affirm the CDC’s scientific integrity; and guarantee the safety of the HHS workforce.
“The deliberate destruction of trust in America’s public health workforce puts lives at risk. We urge you to act in the best interest of the American people—your friends, your families, and yourselves,” the letter stated.
