Senator Murray Calls for HELP Committee Hearing with RFK Jr. on Campaign of Destruction at CDC and Beyond

ICYMI: On Senate Floor, Senator Murray Demands Immediate Firing of RFK Jr.: "This Man is Burning Down Our Public Health System from the Inside"

ICYMI: Senator Murray Calls for Immediate Firing of RFK Jr., Commends CDC Director Monarez's Stand for Science and Public Health

Murray: "If Republicans refuse to allow our committee to exercise its oversight responsibilities, and instead just insist that we stand by and watch a conspiracy theorist burn our public health agencies to the ground, what are they even here for?"

Washington, D.C. - Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a senior member and former chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, released the following statement calling for HELP Chair Bill Cassidy (R-LA) to hold an oversight hearing with U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) Jr. calling on him to answer for his increasingly dangerous attacks on lifesaving vaccines and America's public health infrastructure, and his recent forcing out of newly-confirmed Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Susan Monarez and other top experts who dared to stand up for basic science. The CDC Director is a Senate-confirmed position for the first time this year thanks to the bipartisan PREVENT Pandemics Act Senator Murray negotiated and passed into law as HELP Chair in 2022. Director Monarez was in the role for less than a month before being forced out by Secretary Kennedy.

"In light of RFK Jr.'s recent, unprecedented moves to fire the CDC Director and push out public health experts, and the bipartisan concern about whether science or politics is driving vaccine policy decisions at HHS-the time has come for the 'radical transparency' we were once promised. For the good of the American people, RFK Jr. must immediately be called in to testify publicly before the HELP Committee.

"The American people deserve answers about why the conspiracy theorist atop HHS is blocking them from getting the vaccines they need to stay safe, and how exactly decisions affecting their health are being made. They deserve answers about the exact sequence of events that led to RFK Jr. attempting to fire Susan Monarez-the first Senate-confirmed CDC Director-from her position, and whether he lied about it in front of Congress last week. They need to know why RFK Jr. threw promising vaccine research and potential cancer breakthroughs into the shredder by canceling research into the very technology that powered Operation Warp Speed.

"The HELP Committee must have the opportunity to not only question RFK Jr., but to also hear from Susan Monarez and other former CDC officials in a public setting as well-Americans deserve the truth. If Republicans refuse to allow our committee to exercise its oversight responsibilities, and instead just insist that we stand by and watch a conspiracy theorist burn our public health agencies to the ground, what are they even here for?"

Senator Murray, a longtime congressional leader on health care who has led hearings on addressing vaccine hesitancy, has been a leader in raising the alarm over RFK Jr.'s nomination since the beginning-speaking out on the Senate floor, holding numerous events, raising the alarm after meeting with him, and hammering the threat he poses to Americans' health nonstop. She led the opposition to the Trump administration's disastrous plan to dismantle HHS and fire tens of thousands of staff in critical positions across CDC, NIH, FDA, and other agencies, and spoke out forcefully against RFK Jr.'s ousting of the entire CDC vaccine advisory board, including one ACIP member from Washington state. Senator Murray has held countless events across Washington state and in Washington, D.C. with doctors, patients, and former HHS officials to lift up how Trump and Republicans' attacks on health care will be devastating for families. Last week, Senator Murray took to the Senate floor again to reiterate her call for RFK Jr. to be fired immediately.

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