Within the aftermath of an assault on the primary campus for the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention in Atlanta on Aug. 8, workers on the CDC, Nationwide Institutes of Well being, and different well being companies are calling for help and management from their boss, Well being and Human Companies Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

A letter signed by tons of of present and former HHS workers, addressed to Kennedy and members of Congress, says Kennedy is “complicit in dismantling America’s public well being infrastructure and endangering the nation’s well being” by questioning the integrity of the CDC’s workforce, making false claims that COVID vaccines should not protected or efficient, altering vaccine coverage primarily based on ideology relatively than science, and contributing to “harassment and violence skilled by the CDC workers.”

To the signatories, these components contributed to an assault on CDC on August 8, when a gunman stood on a avenue nook in Atlanta and fired greater than 500 rounds onto the company’s foremost campus. Authorities have mentioned that the taking pictures was motivated by the gunman’s “discontent” with COVID vaccines, primarily based on written paperwork present in his residence. He thought he had been injured by the vaccine and believed it was harming others, in line with interviews with relations by Atlanta Information First.

In response to the letter, HHS emailed a press release to NPR on August 20:

“Secretary Kennedy is standing firmly with CDC workers—each on the bottom and throughout each heart—making certain their security and well-being stay a high precedence…Any try and conflate broadly supported public well being reforms with the violence of a suicidal mass shooter is an try and politicize a tragedy.”

“This can be a main occasion”

The gunman approached CDC foremost campus on a Friday afternoon, in the direction of the tip of the work day. He struck six buildings wherein CDC workers barricaded themselves in places of work, hid in closets and crouched beneath desks. The gunman killed a responding police officer, 33-year-old David Rose, after which killed himself.

“This can be a main occasion,” mentioned Dr. Fiona Havers, a former CDC official and a signatory on the letter who left the company in June. “It is important that the size of this occasion is acknowledged and that folks that work in public well being, and public well being usually, are given rather more help than they’re being given proper now.”

Days after the taking pictures, Dr. Elizabeth Soda, an infectious illnesses doctor with the CDC’s Nationwide Heart for Rising and Zoonotic Infectious Ailments, returned to campus to retrieve her laptop computer. “I by no means dreamed I might see CDC in that state, by no means dreamed I might see bullet holes,” she says, talking in her private capability, and never on behalf of the company.

Soda had left campus simply half-hour earlier than the taking pictures occurred, and was texting frantically with colleagues through the assault. “Initially, I used to be shocked,” she says, “however now that I’ve sat and thought of it, it isn’t stunning.” She says that years of inaccurate well being data being unfold, together with the politicization of science and well being, have created the situations for violence to be directed at public well being employees.

These components have ratcheted up previously few months, Havers says. “The truth that the inflammatory rhetoric and misinformation about COVID vaccines is now coming from the HHS Secretary and from the administration has fueled it and given it legitimacy it could not have had earlier than,” she says.

CDC workers say Secretary Kennedy’s response to the taking pictures has been missing. He visited Atlanta to tour the campus within the days after, assembly with the CDC director and safety workers, and visiting the spouse of the police officer who was killed.

The assertion from HHS in response to the letter mentioned, “Within the wake of this heartbreaking taking pictures, [Kennedy] traveled to Atlanta to supply his help and reaffirm his deep respect, calling the CDC ‘a shining star amongst international well being companies.’ For the primary time in its 70-year historical past, the mission of HHS is actually resonating with the American individuals—pushed by President Trump and Secretary Kennedy’s daring dedication to Make America Wholesome Once more.”

However noticeably absent, staffers say, has been any point out of the misinformation on COVID vaccines that authorities mentioned motivated the shooter, or a full protection of the CDC’s mission and work. In an interview with Scripps Information days after the assault, Kennedy mentioned that authorities officers had been “saying issues that weren’t all the time true” in an effort to “persuade the general public to get vaccinated” through the COVID pandemic. “Public well being companies haven’t been trustworthy,” he mentioned. Kennedy additionally mentioned that public well being authorities shouldn’t be trusted, as a result of “trusting the consultants will not be a characteristic of science or democracy, it is a characteristic of totalitarianism and of faith.”

The signatories of the letter have requested Kennedy to “cease spreading inaccurate well being data,” “affirm CDC’s scientific integrity,” and assure the protection of the HHS workforce.

Solidarity

The assault on CDC has rallied help from workers at different HHS companies, tons of of whom signed onto the letter as effectively.

“Despite the fact that this assault occurred on the CDC in Georgia, this impacts all federal employees,” says Ian Morgan, a postdoctoral fellow at Nationwide Institutes of Well being and a signatory on the letter, talking for himself and never for the company. “We’re standing in solidarity with our CDC colleagues, however we all know we’re additionally in danger.”

Morgan says that safety and police presence has elevated on the NIH campus in Maryland, “and that is nice,” he says, “however when you could have individuals from the highest who’re placing a goal in your again, how are you going to really feel protected going to work on daily basis?”

He says a variety of adjustments previously few months have “put the lives of the American individuals in danger,” together with management that spreads inaccurate claims about vaccines, limitations to buying provides and speaking with the general public, main reductions to workers and applications. “Our jobs as federal employees are to enhance the well being of the American individuals, however we’re being saved from doing that,” Morgan says.

The letter writers have requested for a response from Kennedy by September 2.