Sanders warns RFK Jr.’s vaccine skepticism threatens public health

MANCHESTER, N.H. – Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont says if Robert F. Kennedy Jr. doesn’t step down as Health and Human Services secretary in President Donald Trump’s administration, Americans will need to speak out.

“We’ve got to rally the American people. This is a huge issue,” Sanders told Fox News Digital on Monday.

Sanders, the ranking member of the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said “I’m not a scientist, I’m not a doctor, but I do talk to scientists, and I do talk to doctors, and the evidence is overwhelming. It’s not contestable. Vaccines work. They save millions and millions of lives.”

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And the progressive champion and 2016 and 2020 Democratic presidential nomination runner-up warned that “if Kennedy and his friends are able to make people think that vaccines are not safe, it will be a real public health crisis for America.”

Sanders is among a growing list of politicians and officials who warn that Kennedy, the longtime environmental activist and vaccine skeptic who Trump picked late last year as his health secretary in his second administration, is jeopardizing the health of Americans with his controversial moves.

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“Mr Kennedy and the rest of the Trump administration tell us, over and over, that they want to Make America Healthy Again. That’s a great slogan. I agree with it. The problem is that since coming into office, President Trump and Mr Kennedy have done exactly the opposite,” Sanders wrote this past weekend in an opinion piece in the New York Times.

And Sanders said that “despite the overwhelming opposition of the medical community, Secretary Kennedy has continued his longstanding crusade against vaccines and his advocacy of conspiracy theories that have been rejected repeatedly by scientific experts.”

Sanders’ call for Kennedy to resign came after last week’s firing of Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Director Susan Monarez, less than a month after she was confirmed. The firing of Monarez came after she refused Kennedy’s directives to adopt new limitations on the availability of some vaccines, including approvals for COVID-19 vaccines.

Four other top CDC officials resigned in protest hours later, accusing the Trump administration and Kennedy of weaponizing public health.

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Sanders, who was interviewed Monday after headlining the New Hampshire AFL-CIO’s annual Labor Day breakfast, charged in his statement over the weekend that Kennedy “has absurdly claimed that ‘there’s no vaccine that is safe and effective’.”

“Who supports Secretary Kennedy’s views?” Sanders asked. “Not credible scientists and doctors. One of his leading ‘experts’ that he cites to back up his bogus claims on autism and vaccines had his medical license revoked and his study retracted from the medical journal that published it.”

The incident received rare bipartisan pushback by some members of Congress.

But the White House defended the firing of Monarez, with White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt telling reporters on Thursday that the president has the “authority to fire those who are not aligned with his mission.” 

“The president and Secretary Kennedy are committed to restoring trust and transparency and credibility to the CDC by ensuring their leadership and their decisions are more public-facing, more accountable, strengthening our public health system and restoring it to its core mission of protecting Americans from communicable diseases, investing in innovation to prevent, detect and respond to future threats,” Leavitt argued.

Fox News Bonny Chu and Landon Mion contributed to this story