Federal health workers' rage against RFK Jr. boils over
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Federal health workers' pent-up frustration with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is boiling over in the aftermath of an attack on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Atlanta headquarters that they believe he helped stoke with inflammatory rhetoric and misinformation.
Why it matters: After eight months of upheaval, layoffs and grant terminations, more than 750 Health and Human Services employees went public on Wednesday in a letter to Kennedy and members of Congress that accused Kennedy of contributing to harassment and violence against government employees.
"We are civil servants. We don't tend to speak out a lot. But ... I don't feel like we can afford to be silent anymore," said Elizabeth Soda, a CDC employee speaking with Axios in her personal capacity.
- "I know that there are risks" in speaking out publicly, she said. "But to me, this is more important than the current state of my job."
Kennedy has driven the narrative that the vast bureaucracy he oversees has been captive to the industries it regulates. He's called the CDC a "cesspool of corruption" and questioned whether vaccines for measles and other viruses are safe.
- Workers are starting to push back. They're publicly demanding that Kennedy stop spreading inaccurate and misleading claims about the shots, disease transmission and public health institutions, and that he respond by Sept. 2.
- Kennedy posted on X the day after the Aug. 8 shooting — during which nearly 200 rounds were fired and a police officer was killed — that he supported and honored the agency's employees. He toured the scene the following Monday.
Many employees don't feel that's enough. "We need a secretary that will affirm us and support our work," said one CDC employee who was on the scene at the time and asked to remain anonymous due to fear of repercussions.
- "We don't have that. Instead, we're being attacked from within."
The other side: HHS said in a statement to Axios that CDC employees' safety and well-being is a top priority for Kennedy.
- "Any attempt to conflate widely supported public health reforms with the violence of a suicidal mass shooter is an attempt to politicize a tragedy," the statement said.
Between the lines: Kennedy initiated an overhaul of HHS in April that involved downsizing the workforce by 10,000. That plan has been halted in court, but the Supreme Court last month gave the agency permission to move ahead with some layoffs, including at CDC.
- Reductions in force for some CDC employees already on administrative leave resumed this week — reportedly including violence prevention staff — even as agency workers cope with the trauma from the attack.
- "It is heart-wrenching," Soda said.
- "The biggest disappointment and anger is really focused at Kennedy and his response, his lack of empathy, and ultimately, the blatant health inaccuracies he has spread," she said. "That has really, to me, been a root cause of what's happening."
Employees at other HHS agencies are fed up, too, and joining the call for change.
- National Institutes of Health post-doctoral fellow Ian Morgan, also speaking to Axios in his personal capacity, said he signed the letter because he wants to hold the administration accountable for vilifying federal employees and repeating anti-science rhetoric.
- He and more than 480 other NIH employees signed a letter to director Jay Bhattacharya in June, calling on him to take actions including restoring terminated grants and protecting the peer-review process.
- But this is the first time Morgan knows of that people from across HHS are presenting a united front to their leadership.
- "It just shows how stark of a problem this is that we're all facing," he said.
Zoom out: Medical groups outside of the federal government are also starting to band together in opposition to Kennedy's policies.
- On Tuesday, the American Academy of Pediatrics released its 2025 respiratory illness vaccine guidelines, which run counter to the federal government's by continuing to recommend updated COVID boosters for all kids ages 6 months and up.
- Kennedy slammed the recommendations, charging them as a "pay-to-play scheme to promote commercial ambitions of AAP's Big Pharma benefactors" in an X post.
- The Vaccine Integrity Project, an ad-hoc group of doctors and researchers, also held its first public meeting on Tuesday to review recent studies on COVID, RSV and flu vaccines, saying the data isn't being adequately considered by federal health officials.
What to watch: Some signers of the letter told Axios they are hoping Congress launches an oversight probe if Kennedy digs in or doesn't respond.
- "It's not hopeless," Morgan said. "There has been irreparable damage, don't get me wrong, but we still have the capacity to fix things and move forward."
