Senator Sanders wants RFK Jr.

Senator Bernie Sanders, I-VT., Demands that the secretary of health and social services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. resigns after several senior officials of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention left the agency.

The Trump administration announced the abolition of CDC director Susan Monarez, earlier this week, less than a month after being confirmed, after refusing Kennedy’s directives to adopt new limitations on the availability of certain vaccines, including for approvals for COVVI-19 vaccines.

Four other senior CDC officials resigned to protest after the ousting of Monarez, pointing out in part of the anti-vaccine policies pushed by Kennedy. Hundreds of workers from the agency also left the CDC headquarters in Atlanta to support their former colleagues.

In response to departures, Sanders wrote in an editorial for the New York Times that Kennedy “endangers the health of the American people now and in the future” and accused the secretary of dismissing Monarez because she refused to “act as a rubber stamp for his dangerous policy”.

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Senator Bernie Sanders demands that the secretary of health and social services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. resign. (SOMODEVILLA / GETTY Images)

“Despite the overwhelming opposition of the medical community, secretary Kennedy continued his long -standing crusade against vaccines and his plea for conspiracy theories that have been rejected several times by scientific experts,” Sanders wrote in the song published on Saturday.

“It is absurd to have to say it in 2025, but the vaccines are safe and effective,” he added. “It is of course not only in my opinion. Much more important, it is the overwhelming consensus of medical and scientific communities.”

Sanders also noted that vaccines for diseases like Polio and COVVI-19 have saved hundreds of millions of lives around the world.

Sanders, a classification member of the Senate health committee, opposed Kennedy confirmation earlier this year. The secretary was sworn in in February. HHS deputy secretary, Jim O’Neill, was selected to be the acting director of the CDC after the end of Monarez.

CDC director Susan Monarez refuses to be dismissed while other officials call her

Sanders said Kennedy “endangers the health of the American people now and in the future”. (Reuters / Pedro Lazaro Fernandez)

The Trump administration defended the ouster of Monarez, with the press secretary of the White House, Karoline Leavitt, claiming Thursday that the president had “the authority to dismiss those who are not aligned on his mission”.

“The president and secretary Kennedy undertakes to restore confidence, transparency and credibility to the CDC by ensuring that their leadership and their decisions are more accessible to the public, more responsible, by strengthening our public health system and by restoring it to its main mission to protect the Americans against transmitted diseases, to invest in innovation to prevent, detect and respond to future threats,” said Levitt with reporters.

Sanders earlier this week called for an investigation into the ouster of Monarez, criticizing this decision as “reckless” and “dangerous”.

In OP-ED, he wrote that Kennedy “benefited and built a career on the distrust of vaccines to sow vaccines”, adding that the secretary “now uses his authority to launch a full war against science, public health and the truth itself”.

He also said that it would become more difficult for Americans to obtain “vital vaccines” with Kennedy leading HHS.

The Trump administration announced the abolition of CDC director Susan Monarez earlier this week. (Kayla Bartkowski / Getty Images)

“The danger here is that diseases that have been practically destroyed due to safe and effective vaccines would surface and cause enormous damage,” said Sanders, stressing that the United States must be better prepared in the case of another pandemic.

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“Secretary Kennedy endangers the life of the Americans and he has to resign,” wrote Sanders. “In his place, President Trump must listen to doctors and scientists and appoint a secretary to health and a CDC director who will protect the health and well-being of the American people, and not dangerous policies according to conspiracy theories.”

Fox News Digital contacted HHS to comment.

Reuters contributed to this report.