spreading

Some 750 federal health employees signed the letter two weeks after a gunman fired 180 bullets into CDC buildings.

Hundreds of federal health employees have written to United States Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, imploring him to “stop spreading inaccurate health information”, weeks after a gunman fired hundreds of bullets into the headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta.

Signatories to the letter on Wednesday, including hundreds of current HHS staff, accused Kennedy of “sowing public mistrust by questioning the integrity and morality of CDC’s workforce”, including by calling the public health agency a “cesspool of corruption”, during his 2024 failed presidential election campaign.

They also said that Kennedy’s policies, including cuts to thousands of HHS employees, were creating “dangerous gaps in areas like infectious diseases detection, worker safety, and chronic disease prevention and response”.

“The deliberate destruction of trust in America’s public health workforce puts lives at risk,” the workers said, noting that Kennedy had spread false claims about the measles vaccine, undermining the public health outbreak response to the disease.

They also noted that the recent attack on the CDC building was another example of the dangers resulting from the health secretary’s words.

The shooter, who had publicly expressed his distrust of COVID-19 vaccines, opened fire at the CDC headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, fatally shooting police officer David Rose, 33, before dying of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on August 8.

In a statement shared with US media outlets, the HHS said that “Secretary Kennedy is standing firmly with CDC employees – both on the ground and across every center – ensuring their safety and wellbeing remain a top priority”.

Kennedy has long been accused of spreading vaccine misinformation, including in a 2019 visit to Samoa, which came months before a measles outbreak on the South Pacific island which killed 81 people, mostly babies and young children.

In an interview with The Guardian newspaper earlier this year, Samoa’s prime minister, Fiame Naomi Mataʻafa, expressed surprise that Kennedy, who denies being against vaccines, was chosen as US health secretary.

More recently, Kennedy has cancelled hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for research into mRNA vaccines, a medical breakthrough credited with preventing millions of deaths from COVID-19 and having the potential to treat diseases such as cancer and HIV, according to the International Vaccine Access Center at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

William Foege, who served as the director of the CDC from 1977 to 1983, penned an article in US health outlet Stat News this week, urging public health workers to “not back down”.

“We will live through this drought of values, principles, and facts and again apply our talents to improving global health and happiness,” he wrote.

Foege, who has been credited with playing an instrumental role in eradicating smallpox, a virus that was fatal in 30 percent of cases, went on to warn that Kennedy’s words were dangerous.

“In the meantime, be clear. Kennedy’s words can be as lethal as the smallpox virus. Americans deserve better,” he wrote.

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.