September 3, 2025

President Donald J. Trump
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear President Trump,

The undersigned organizations, representing patients, consumers, workers, health care providers, and more, urge you to fire Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from serving as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) immediately. Instead of ousting health officials who stand up for scientific integrity, fire the source of the chaos at HHS – Secretary Kennedy.[1]

On January 24, many of our organizations wrote a letter to U.S. senators urging them to reject Kennedy’s nomination for secretary of HHS.[2] Now, after less than seven months of Kennedy leading the agency, his record has borne out some of our worst fears. Since assuming office, Secretary Kennedy and HHS have taken a series of actions to sow vaccine mistrust and take away people’s access to vaccines, and imposed severe cuts that undermine Americans’ health and set back scientific progress and medical innovation.

Sowing Vaccine Mistrust and Taking Away Access

Widespread use of vaccines is one of the most effective public health interventions available to prevent needless suffering and death. As one U.S. senator and physician put it to Kennedy at a hearing to consider his confirmation as secretary, “I have tried to do everything I can to make sure I never have to speak to another parent about their child dying due to a vaccine-preventable disease. […] As a physician who has been involved in immunization programs, I have seen the benefits of vaccinations. I know they save lives. I know they are a crucial part of keeping our Nation healthy.”[3] Yet, Secretary Kennedy and HHS under his leadership have taken a series of reckless actions to promote vaccine misinformation and limit vaccine access.

Measles cases spiked in the winter and spring of 2025, yet as outbreaks spread throughout the country, instead of providing unequivocal support for vaccination, Secretary Kennedy published an op-ed suggesting that certain vitamins and foods would better protect Americans against death from measles.[4]

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that each flu season the disease kills from around 6,000 to more than 50,000 people.[5] After Kennedy cancelled meetings[6] and eventually fired the entire panel of the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) under the false pretense[7] of conflicts of interest and replaced them with his personal picks, the committee held a hearing at which it ignored data and analyses presented by CDC in reaching conclusions that call into doubt flu vaccine safety.[8] The chair of the Committee on Infectious Diseases for the American Academy of Pediatrics described the hearing as part of “an orchestrated effort to sow distrust in immunizations and the vaccine approval process.”[9] Additionally, to aid in his disinformation crusade, Secretary Kennedy hired David Geier to work on a new study examining the repeatedly debunked theory that vaccines cause autism.[10]

COVID-19 vaccines have saved millions of lives, prevented severe disease and hospitalizations of millions more, and increased the global gross domestic product by $2.6 trillion.[11] But instead of ensuring COVID-19 vaccines are widely available to all Americans, Secretary Kennedy’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that it will limit approval for seasonal COVID-19 vaccines to seniors and others at high risk.[12],[13] The result is that COVID-19 vaccines will be “less insurable and less available.”[14] Millions of Americans may lose clear access to vaccines, leading to more preventable hospitalizations and death.[15]

Vaccines prevent up to 5 million deaths each year, most of them children,[16] but Kennedy’s antivax campaign does not stop at U.S. borders. On June 25, Secretary Kennedy announced through a prerecorded video delivered to the replenishment summit for Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, that the United States would no longer support its global immunization efforts.

On August 27, the White House announced that it had fired the recently confirmed CDC Director, Dr. Susan Monarez, reportedly over conflicts with Secretary Kennedy over vaccine policy.[17] Several senior CDC officials resigned,[18] one of which who noted in his resignation letter, “[u]nvetted and conflicted outside organizations seem to be the sources HHS use over the gold standard science of CDC and other reputable sources.”[19]

Undermining Americans’ Health and Setting Back Scientific Progress

Billions of dollars in cuts to vital health programs spanning Kennedy’s HHS — some of which are illegal impoundments of Congressionally appropriated funds — are wreaking havoc well beyond damaging trust in and access to vaccines.

The United States has been a global leader in biomedical research for many years, but firings of thousands of staff and billions of dollars in grant terminations at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) under Secretary Kennedy are bringing “bureaucratic sabotage” to the agency[20] and ceding U.S. leadership in biomedical science and innovation to countries like China.[21] NIH has pushed out nearly 5,000 employees and terminated nearly 2,500 grants in a matter of months, including cuts to clinical trials for HIV and Alzheimer’s disease.[22] Slashes at the National Cancer Institute have brought its cancer research funding to the lowest levels in more than a decade.[23] Whether it be cancer, chronic diseases like cardiovascular disease and diabetes, infectious diseases, maternal health, or neurology, virtually no area of health research has been spared from NIH grant slashes under Kennedy’s leadership at HHS.[24]

Just as deaths from the opioid addiction epidemic have begun to decline in recent years, Kennedy is dismantling the agency under HHS tasked with fighting substance abuse and addiction, threatening access to financial resources and expertise relied on by people on the front lines providing services to communities to prevent substance misuse, treat addiction, and foster recovery.[25]

Chaos at the CDC under Kennedy’s HHS has resulted in months-long delays and blocks of millions of dollars of federal grants used to help people get tested and treated for HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.[26] As a North Carolina public health official stated, “The more time that people may have been exposed to HIV and don’t know it, or syphilis and don’t know it and are getting tested and treated, those delays actually translate to potential illness.”[27] The CDC chaos is also blocking tens of millions of dollars in vital funds from flowing to state and local health programs for public health emergency preparedness, chronic disease prevention and education, and prevention research centers, as well as programs to combat gun violence and prevent tobacco use.[28]

The United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), a group of independent doctors, nurses, and public health professionals, rigorously reviews data to provide evidence-based recommendations relied on by health care providers to inform the care they provide to patients.[29] Its recommendations dictate coverage policy for health insurers nationwide.[30] Reports indicate that Secretary Kennedy is considering firing and replacing the entire USPSTF,[31] threatening patients’ access without costsharing “to services such as screenings for colon, breast, and lung cancer; screenings for anxiety and depression in children; and screenings and preventive services for cardiovascular disease.”[32]

In 2020, through Operation Warp Speed, HHS was critical in spurring and accelerating development of mRNA and other vaccines for COVID-19 that saved millions of lives.[33],[34] The success of Operation Warp Speed depended on many years of U.S. government investments in infectious disease research and the tireless work of scientists at NIH and universities.[35] The HHS Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority invested heavily in mRNA research beginning years before COVID-19.[36] But rather than heeding this lesson, Kennedy’s HHS cancelled $500 million in mRNA vaccine contracts. These cuts put Americans at greater risk from pandemic threats and undermine potential advancements in preventing and treating flu, AIDS, cancer, and more.[37] As the president of the American Medical Association said, “with another pandemic always just beyond the horizon, there is no medical reason to cease programs that empower us to develop vaccines more quickly to address viruses as they mutate.”[38]

Conclusion

The examples above are only a small sample of the multitude of ways that Secretary Kennedy has dismantled and undermined vital work undertaken by HHS to improve Americans’ health. The firings and funding cuts undertaken by HHS will reverberate through the lives of Americans for decades, but it is not too late to stop Kennedy from doing further damage as secretary of HHS. You must fire Secretary Kennedy without delay and replace him with an individual with a demonstrated track record of experience and integrity that Americans deserve from their country’s top health official.

Sincerely,

Public Citizen
Protect Our Care
314 Action
ACA Consumer Advocacy
Accountable.US/Accountable.NOW
AFT: Education, Healthcare, Public Services
AIDS Foundation Chicago
Alliance for Retired Americans
American Families for Vaccines
American Federation of Government Employees, AFGE
American Muslim Health Professionals (AMHP)
Americans for Democratic Action, Southern California Chapter
Ask Nurses and Doctors
Autistic Self Advocacy Network
AVAC
Beta Cell Action
Center for Common Ground
Center for Science in the Public Interest
Coalition on Human Needs
Community Catalyst
Defend Public Health
Doctors for America
Drug Policy Alliance
Fight for the Future
Health GAP
Healthcare NOW
HIV+Aging Research Project-Palm Springs
International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF)
International Union, UAW
Jacobs Institute of Women’s Health
Know Your Lemons Foundation
Labor Campaign for Single Payer
Maine AllCare
Male Breast Cancer Global Alliance
MoveOn
National Consumers League
National Nurses United (NNU)
National Working Positive Coalition
Newtown Action Alliance
Nueva Vida
Nurses for America
PAI
People Power United
Physicians for a National Health Program
Popular Democracy
PrEP4All
Progressive Maryland
Project Life
Public Advocacy for Kids (PAK)
Redstone Global Center
Reproductive Freedom for All
Rise Up WV
Service Employees International Union (SEIU)
Social Security Works
T1International
The Children’s Partnership
UnidosUS
Universities Allied for Essential Medicines
Utility Workers Union of America
Voices of Health Care Action
West Virginia Hepatitis Academic Mentoring Partnership

Cc:       U.S. Senators