Former Surgeons General Say It's Their Duty to Warn of 'Profound' Threat RFK Jr. Poses to Americans

Six former US surgeons general, who have worked across multiple presidential administrations, said Tuesday that they have a duty to warn Americans that US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a danger to the health of the public.

In a joint editorial published by The Washington Post, the former surgeons general, including President Donald Trump's first-term surgeon general, Jerome Adams, said that Kennedy's actions are "endangering the health of the nation" and that his policies represent a "profound, immediate, and unprecedented threat" to public health.

The surgeons general went on to say that they have been watching "with increasing alarm as the foundations of our nation's public health system have been undermined" and "science and expertise have taken a back seat to ideology and misinformation."

They then singled out Kennedy's decades-long obsession with promoting anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, which they said risks bringing back diseases that have long been eradicated in the United States.

"This year, as the United States faced its worst measles outbreak in more than 30 years, Kennedy de-emphasized vaccination and directed agency resources toward unproven vitamin therapies," they wrote. "The result: months-long outbreak, three preventable deaths, and the first measles-related child death in the US in over two decades."

The surgeons general also pointed to Kennedy's decision to link products containing acetaminophen to autism, despite no clear evidence to justify such a claim.

"This move has been widely condemned by the scientific and medical communities, who have pointed out that the available research is inconclusive and insufficient to justify such a warning," they wrote. "In an extraordinary and unprecedented response, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and other leading health organizations issued public guidance urging physicians and patients to disregard HHS’s recommendation."

Elsewhere in the editorial, the surgeons general accused Kennedy of leading a campaign to silence and sideline career public health researchers at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which they said had created "an atmosphere of fear and distrust" in public health agencies, in which "scientific findings are censored, evidence is disregarded, and career officials are pressured to rubber-stamp conclusions that are not backed by science."

The surgeons general aren't the only public health experts warning about the negative impact of Kennedy's tenure. NPR reported on Monday that two professional psychiatric associations, the Southern California Psychiatry Society and the Committee to Protect Public Mental Health, have now called for Kennedy's removal as HHS secretary.

In a statement released late last month, the Committee to Protect Public Mental Health charged that Kennedy "has undermined the public health infrastructure" by retaliating against scientists who have opposed his directives, while at the same time promoting "fringe ideas" that have "contributed to public confusion."

The committee ended its statement by calling on Trump to remove Kennedy from his post and "appoint a qualified, evidence-driven leader without delay."

Similarly, the Southern California Psychiatric Association has released a statement calling for Kennedy's ouster so that he can be replaced with a "qualified health leader with the training, experience, and integrity required to safeguard the health and well-being of all Americans."

Dr. Emily Wood, co-chair of the Southern California Psychiatric Association, told NPR that she was particularly disturbed by the recently released Make America Health Again (MAHA) report that she said "specifically misrepresents the data on psychotropic medications, really ignoring the full body of the scientific literature."

She said that this misrepresentation of data was used by the report to call "for various ways to limit access to psychiatric medications, which is extremely disturbing as these are medications that are critical for many individuals with depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, ADHD, and many disorders."

Last month, more than 1,000 current and former HHS employees released a letter calling for Kennedy's removal, as they accused him of trying to "endanger the nation’s health" by "sowing public mistrust" of vaccines.

The surgeons general on Tuesday also suggested that Kennedy should no longer serve as the country's top health official, saying that "the nation deserves a health and human services secretary who is committed to scientific integrity and can restore morale and trust in our public health agencies."

"Having served at senior levels in government, we know that politics are complicated," they said. "But this is bigger than politics. It’s about putting the health of Americans first."