David Rose

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.

Aug. 13 (UPI) — The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told employees about the dangers of misinformation, four days after a suspected gunman shot at the agency’s headquarters in Atlanta, claiming the COVID-19 vaccine made him sick.

On Tuesday, Susan Monarez met with staffers virtually and then sent a note to all 10,000 employees nationwide, obtained by ABC News. Staffers at the headquarters have been working remotely since the attack on Friday.

“The dangers of misinformation and its promulgation has now led to deadly consequences,” she wrote. “I will work to restore trust in public health to those who have lost it — through science, evidence and clarity of purpose. I will need your help.”

The comments were slightly different than those during her staff meeting in which she said: “Public health should never be under attack. We know that misinformation can be dangerous.”

She said the health agency can rebuild trust with “rational evidence-based discourse” with “compassion and understanding.”

Dr. Paul Offit, the director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania, told NBC News: “The irony is her boss is the biggest spreader of misinformation.”

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is secretary of the Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC.

In 2021, during the pandemic, Kennedy described the shot as the “deadliest vaccine ever made” after he filed a citizens’ petition requesting that the Food and Drug Administration end emergency authorization.

Last week, Kennedy announced that HHS was moving to terminate $500 million in contracts to develop vaccines using mRNA technology, which was used to develop the COVID-19 vaccine in 2020.

“After reviewing the science and consulting top experts at NIH [National Institutes of Health] and FDA, HHS has determined that mRNA technology poses more risks than benefits for these respiratory viruses,”

The American Medical Association backs mRNA vaccine research and the CDC still says on its website: “During the COVID-19 pandemic, COVID-19 vaccines underwent the most intensive safety analysis in U.S. history.”

Health officials have denounced skepticism of the research, noting the COVID-19 vaccine saved millions of lives in the United States.

“The Covid pandemic showed us what’s possible when science moves fast,” Rick Bright, who directed the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development from 2016 to 2020, told NBC News. “Dismantling that momentum now is like disbanding the fire department because the fire’s out.”

As head of the HHS, he has updated COVID-19 vaccine recommendations for the fall to be restricted to older adults and those with underlying health conditions. He also doesn’t want children to get the shots.

On Monday, Kennedy toured the CDC campus in Atlanta and met with the widow of the one person slain in the attack, DeKalb County Police Officer David Rose. He toured with Monarez and HHS Deputy Secretary Jim O’Neill.

“He offered his deepest condolences and reaffirmed the agency’s commitment to honoring officer Rose’s bravery, sacrifice and service to the nation,” HHS said.

Since the attack, the union representing CDC workers condemned the lack of support from top officials.

“This leadership is critical in reinforcing public trust and ensuring that accurate, science-based information prevails,” the union said Sunday. “This condemnation is necessary to help prevent violence against scientists that may be incited by such disinformation.”

The American Federation of Government Employees Local 2883, which represents more than 2,000 CDC workers, said in a statement Sunday that the attack “was not random and it compounds months of mistreatment, neglect and vilification that CDC staff have endured.”

The union also said: “The deliberate targeting of CDC through this violent act is deeply disturbing, completely unacceptable and an attack on every public servant.”

The father of the suspected gunman, 30-year-old Patrick Joseph White, reportedly told authorities he targeted the CDC over health problems he blamed on the COVID-19 vaccine. He said the shot made him depressed and suicidal.

He was fatally shot by police after around 200 bullets struck the six buildings. Five firearms were recovered.

“All indications are that this was an isolated event involving one individual,” Jeff Williams, the deputy secretary of the CDC’s Office of Safety, Security and Asset Management, said during the staff meeting Tuesday.

Aug. 12 (UPI) — Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has visited the CDC headquarters in Atlanta where a police officer was killed in a shooting that is believed to have targeted the national public health agency.

Kennedy was led by CDC security on a tour of the Roybal Campus on Monday, HHS said in a statement, with HHS Deputy Secretary Jim O’Neill and CDC Director Susan Monarez in attendance.

Little information about the tour was made public aside from shattered windows across multiple buildings on campus being pointed out to Kennedy.

Kennedy also visited the DeKalb County Police Department, which lost office David Rose in the shooting. The HHS secretary also visited with Rose’s widow, the statement said.

“He offered his deepest condolences and reaffirmed the agency’s commitment to honoring officer Rose’s bravery, sacrifice and service to the nation,” HHS said.

Rose was fatally shot while responding to the shooting at the CDC headquarters on Friday.

The suspected gunman, 30-year-old Patrick Joseph White, was shot dead by police at the scene.

At least 180 shots were fired during the incident, hitting at least 150 windows and doors at the CDC headquarters, CBS News reported, citing two people with knowledge of the police investigation.

Authorities believe that White targeted the CDC over health problems he blamed on the COVID-19 vaccine.

The shooting came on the heels of Kennedy, a vaccine skeptic, pulling $500 million in funding from developing vaccines using mRNA technology, which was used to develop the COVID-19 vaccine.

Despite support from the medical community for such research and medical therapies, Kennedy claimed “the technology poses more risks than benefits.”

Before his visit, the union representing thousands of workers at the CDC on Sunday called on Kennedy and CDC leadership to make “a clear and unequivocal stance in condemning vaccine disinformation.”

“The deliberate targeting of CDC through this violent act is deeply disturbing, completely unacceptable and an attack on every public servant,” the union said.

“Early reports indicate the gunman was motivated by vaccine disinformation, which continues to pose a dangerous threat to public health and safety.”

Aug. 9 (UPI) — The suspected gunman in the attack that killed a police officer near the Emory University campus and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s headquarters was identified Saturday morning.

One day after the shooting on Friday night, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said that Patrick Joseph White, 30, of Kennesaw, Ga., was the killer.

WXIA-TV posted video from outside the home of the suspected shooter on Friday night where there was crime scene tape.

GBI is the lead investigator, and has been working with the Atlanta, DeKalb County and Emory police, DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office, FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Emory, with an enrollment of 5,727, was on lockdown for a few hours, while the CDC had a shelter in place order at its Roybal Campus until the late evening. The school said Saturday there will be increased police presence throughout the weekend.

David Rose, a 33-year-old police officer for the DeKalb department, died while responding to the shooting. Rose, who joined the department in September and was a retired U.S. Marine, had two children with his wife, who is pregnant.

“This officer responded to the call as he did, as he was trained to do, and during that incident he received gunfire and he lost his life in this incident,” interim Police Chief Gregory Padrick said. “He was committed to serving the community. It’s a noble profession we all do. We answer the call to serve our community and he gave his life with a commitment to serve others.”

Rose was the only person shot during the attack, which started just before 5 p.m. at the Emory Point CVS drugstore on Clifton Road. White was found dead from a gunshot wound on the second floor. It wasn’t disclosed whether he was shot by law enforcement or whether it was self-inflicted.

The shooting occurred across the street from the CDC campus, where there were bullet holes in windows and shattered glass on the floor. Some rounds of ammunition also flew just above office cubicles.

CDC Director Susan Monerez told employees to work remotely while a “security assessment” is conducted at the campus.

Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens said Friday the suspect was “known to have some interest in certain things that I can’t reiterate right now with any confidence until the investigation is fully conducted.”

CNN reported the shooter was upset about health problems blamed on the Covid-19 vaccine recommended by the CDC and approved by the Federal Drug Administration in 2020 with Emergency Use Authorization and full approval for certain ages in 2021 for Pfizer-BioNTech and in 2022 for Moderna.

Aug. 8 (UPI) — The suspected shooter on Emory University’s campus and near the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters is dead and a DeKalb County officer responding to the incident was killed Friday, authorities said.

The shooting occurred before 5 p.m. EDT at Emory Point CVS, which is part of a shopping center of restaurants, shops and apartments where some students live, CNN reported. No civilians were injured, police said.

Police believe the unnamed suspect targeted the CDC because of unhappiness with the Covid-19 vaccine, CNN reported. He reportedly was wearing a surgical mask, and possessed two handguns, one rifle and a shotgun.

Late Friday, the officer was identified as 33-year-old David Rose, married and the father of two, interim DeKalb County Police Department Chief Greg Padrick said in a news conference.

“It is with profound sadness that we announce the loss of the life of one of our very own DeKalb County police officers,” Padrick said. “This officer responded to the call as he was trained to do, and during that incident, he received gunfire and he lost his life in this incident. He was committed to serving the community.”

He started with the agency in September 2024 after graduating from the police academy.

“This evening there is a wife without a husband,” DeKalb County CEO Lorraine Cochran-Johnson said. “There are three children, one unborn, without a father.

“There is a mother and a father, as well as siblings, who also share in this traumatic loss.”

The Atlanta Police Department can’t confirm why the police officer was present in its jurisdiction.

“It’s not uncommon for patrol patterns to cross multiple jurisdictions that may share the space,” Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum told reporters. “Was he going to work? Was he coming home from work? We don’t know if he was on patrol.”

Schierbaum said multiple rounds struck four nearby CDC buildings, including windows.

The police chief said 911 calls about an active shooting were received around 4:50 p.m. in front of the CDC campus.

Responding officers found the critically injured DeKalb County officer.

The suspect died on the second floor of the CVS of gunshot wounds, police said. An official told CNN that the shooter fired at an officer’s cruiser.

“We do not know at this time if it was an officer’s or if it was self-inflicted,” Schierbaum said.

A shelter-in-place was lifted late Friday at the CDC with CDC buildings closed until further notice, according to a message to employees.

“We at CDC are heartbroken by today’s attack on our Roybal Campus, which remains on lockdown as authorities investigate the shooting,” CDC Director Susan Monarez posted on X.

She said the CDC is cooperating with law enforcement in the investigation.

At 5:31 p.m., Emory’s Office of Critical Events Preparedness and Response instructed people to shelter in place on the private college’s campus.

About one hour later, a DeKalb County official said the situation was contained and there was no active threat, NBC News reported. But county residents should remain indoors as a precaution during the investigation.

Police said there was a single shooter.

The father of the alleged shooter’s father called law enforcement before the shooting to report that he believed his son was suicidal, a law enforcement official told CNN.

A CDC employee told CNN a man approached the steps of a building at the agency’s campus, put a backpack down, pulled out a rifle, and shot at the building.

Chris Weaver told WXIA that he believed he heard the shots.

“I was stunned at first,” he said, adding he thought he was safe.

The FBI sent agents to assist local law enforcement. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation is leading the investigation.

This was the second shooting in Georgia this week.

On Wednesday, an active-duty soldier opened fire at Fort Stewart, injuring five service members. The suspected shooter was taken into custody.

Fort Stewart, which is part of the Savannah metropolitan area, is 243 miles southeast from Emory.

Gov. Brian Kemp posted on X: “Twice this week, deranged criminals have targeted innocent Georgians. Each time, brave first responders rushed toward the danger to subdue the shooter and save lives, reminding us of just how crucial they are.”

Emory is a liberal arts research university with enrollment of 5,727.