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Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., is demanding that Well being and Human Providers Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. resign after a number of senior officers on the Heart for Illness Management and Prevention departed the company.
The Trump administration introduced the elimination of CDC Director Susan Monarez earlier this week, lower than a month after she was confirmed, after she refused Kennedy’s directives to undertake new limitations on the supply of some vaccines, together with for approvals for COVID-19 vaccines.
4 different senior CDC officers resigned in protest after Monarez’s ouster, pointing, partly, to anti-vaccine insurance policies pushed by Kennedy. Lots of of employees on the company additionally walked out of the CDC’s headquarters in Atlanta in help of their former colleagues.
In response to the departures, Sanders wrote in an op-ed for The New York Occasions that Kennedy is “endangering the well being of the American folks now and into the longer term” and accused the secretary of firing Monarez as a result of she refused “to behave as a rubber stamp for his harmful insurance policies.”
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Sen. Bernie Sanders is demanding that Well being and Human Providers Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. resign. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Pictures)
“Regardless of the overwhelming opposition of the medical neighborhood, Secretary Kennedy has continued his longstanding campaign towards vaccines and his advocacy of conspiracy theories which have been rejected repeatedly by scientific specialists,” Sanders wrote within the piece printed Saturday.
“It’s absurd to should say this in 2025, however vaccines are secure and efficient,” he added. “That, in fact, is not only my view. Way more essential, it’s the overwhelming consensus of the medical and scientific communities.”
Sanders additionally famous that vaccines for ailments like polio and COVID-19 have saved a whole bunch of thousands and thousands of lives all over the world.
Sanders, the rating member of the Senate’s well being committee, opposed Kennedy’s affirmation earlier this yr. The secretary was sworn in again in February. Deputy HHS Secretary Jim O’Neill was chosen to be the appearing director of the CDC after Monarez’s termination.
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Sanders mentioned Kennedy is “endangering the well being of the American folks now and into the longer term.” (Reuters/Pedro Lazaro Fernandez)
The Trump administration has defended Monarez’s ouster, with White Home press secretary Karoline Leavitt saying Thursday the president has the “authority to fireplace those that will not be aligned along with his mission.”
“The president and Secretary Kennedy are dedicated to restoring belief and transparency and credibility to the CDC by making certain their management and their choices are extra public-facing, extra accountable, strengthening our public well being system and restoring it to its core mission of defending People from communicable ailments, investing in innovation to stop, detect and reply to future threats,” Leavitt informed reporters.
Sanders earlier this week referred to as for an investigation into Monarez’s ouster, criticizing the transfer as “reckless” and “harmful.”
Within the op-ed, he wrote that Kennedy “has profited from and constructed a profession on sowing distrust in vaccines,” including that the secretary is now “utilizing his authority to launch a full-blown conflict on science, on public well being and on fact itself.”
He additionally mentioned it is going to turn out to be more durable for People to acquire “lifesaving vaccines” with Kennedy main HHS.
The Trump administration introduced the elimination of CDC Director Susan Monarez earlier this week. (Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Pictures)
“The hazard right here is that ailments which have been just about worn out due to secure and efficient vaccines will resurface and trigger huge hurt,” Sanders wrote, stressing that the U.S. must be higher ready within the case of one other pandemic.
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“Secretary Kennedy is placing People’ lives in peril, and he should resign,” Sanders wrote. “In his place, President Trump should hearken to docs and scientists and nominate a well being secretary and a C.D.C. director who will defend the well being and well-being of the American folks, not perform harmful insurance policies based mostly on conspiracy theories.”
Fox Information Digital reached out to HHS for remark.
Reuters contributed to this report.
