Surgeons general: RFK Jr. endangers CDC staff he is supposed to protect
Six former U.S. surgeons general wrote in a Washington Post editorial this week that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is putting lives at risk — including those of his own staff at the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Kennedy’s comments that the CDC staff is corrupt and his spread of conspiracy theories “contribute to the targeting of the very staff he is charged with protecting,” they wrote. “As former commanding officers of the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, we know that caring for your people is the sacred duty of a leader.”
The corps are a uniformed force who help staff the CDC. The editorial was published Tuesday.
The six former surgeons general were appointed by six presidents: Drs. Jerome Adams (Donald Trump), Richard Carmona (George W. Bush), Joycelyn Elders (Bill Clinton), Vivek Murthy (Barack Obama, and Joe Biden), Antonia Novello (George H.W. Bush) and David Satcher (Clinton).
They titled their piece, “It’s our duty to warn the nation about RFK Jr.” They called him a danger.
It lays out a wide-ranging expression of alarm at Kennedy’s leadership on health care and of people. It lists examples they describe as amplifying misinformation, undermining science and creating an atmosphere of fear and mistrust at HHS.
The CDC shooting Aug. 8, and Kennedy’s response to it, arise only in the final sections of the editorial. It is the most vivid section.
“We will not soon forget the heartbreaking calls we received from CDC employees, expressing how scared and betrayed they felt for simply doing their jobs to serve the American people,” they wrote.
The shooter was quickly identified by those who knew him as fixated on misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine.
Before the shooting, Kennedy was long known for encouraging distrust of the CDC. In a video interview he called the agency a “cesspool of corruption.”
After the shooting, he at first said little, posting the next day about a hunting trip. Then he struck a new tone in a social media posting that said “we are deeply saddened” at the shooting.
“We know how shaken our public health colleagues feel today,” Kennedy wrote in the post. “No one should face violence while working to protect the health of others.
“We honor their service. We stand with them. And we remain united in our mission to protect and improve the health of every American.”
The Monday after the shooting, Kennedy toured the building privately and echoed his support of the CDC in a Scripps News video interview, saying: “They work in silence, saving us all and protecting our health.”
He also criticized CDC’s COVID-19 response, and did not acknowledge that the shooter was reportedly motivated by COVID-19 vaccine misinformation.
By the time Kennedy was under fire in a Senate hearing last month, he was calling CDC “the most corrupt agency in HHS, and maybe the government.”
Retired CDC scientist Anthony Fiore, who worked on vaccines and is still in touch with current workers in Atlanta, was cheered by the surgeons general editorial.
“I’m really happy that they did it,” Fiore said. “It’s good to have your concerns echoed.”
“A lot of people at CDC have worked in sketchy situations around the world. And they’re not a cowering bunch,” he said. But “when you have the situation we have in our country, with people feeling like violence is the answer, … I think it becomes scary … in a place that you thought you were safe, which is on the CDC campus.”
A spokesperson for HHS, Andrew Nixon, responded in an email that Kennedy is the person restoring trust in the agency.
“The same officials who presided over the decline in America’s public health are now criticizing the first Secretary to confront it head-on,” Nixon said. “We remain committed to restoring trust, reforming broken health systems, and ensuring that every American has access to real choice in their health care.”
About the Author
Ariel Hart is a reporter on health care issues. She works on the AJC’s health team and has reported on subjects including the Voting Rights Act and transportation.
