{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.alsobrooks.senate.gov/news/press-releases/alsobrooks-wyden-continue-to-build-the-case-against-rfk-jr-8/", "Alsobrooks, Wyden Continue to Build the Case Against RFK Jr.", "2026-09-24", "2026", "2026-09", "Democrat", "Senate", "MD", "Angela D. Alsobrooks", "A000382", "www.alsobrooks.senate.gov", "alsobrooks", "https://www.alsobrooks.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/", "scraper", "After releasing a report chronicling every day of RFK Jr.\u2019s costly, chaotic, and corrupt reign as Secretary, Senators Alsobrooks and Wyden continue to build their case for why RFK Jr. must resign or be fired.\n\nSeptember 24, 2026\n\nWASHINGTON, DC \u2013 RFK Jr. continues to harm the American people. On September 4, 2025, Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden and Senator Angela Alsobrooksreleased a report chronicling the actions that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has taken to undermine the health and safety of the American people since becoming Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). On February 18, 2026, they released an updated report covering his first full year as Secretary. Senators Wyden and Alsobrooks continue to track the pervasive and ongoing human harmcaused by his leadership.\n\nBelow are Kennedy\u2019s latest harmful actions (May 15 \u2013 September 20):\n\nMay 2026\n\nThe White House issued an executive order straight from Kennedy\u2019s wish list: directing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and its Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) to \u201ctake any appropriate steps to update the United States childhood and adolescent vaccine schedule\u201d in line with the recommendations made by Kennedy\u2019s team at HHS. Under Kennedy\u2019s leadership, HHS has recommended reducing the number of childhood vaccinations from 17 to 11, exposing U.S. children to the serious and unnecessary risks of contracting a deadly disease.\n\nIn his endless quest to find support for the conspiracy theory that vaccines cause autism, Kennedy announced his intent to tap into Americans\u2019 private medical records and create what amounts to a national autism registry. He announced a \u201creal-world platform\u201d that will mine patient records from Medicare and Medicaid, which collectively cover 40% of Americans, to \u201cuncover the root causes of autism and other chronic diseases.\u201d Kennedy and his team did not specify what kinds of research would be conducted or what kinds of privacy protections would apply to the data.\n\nAfter castigating the panel charged with determining screening coverage for breast and cervical cancer to Congress and undermining its work,Kennedy fired the leaders of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), following thesame pattern he used to politicize the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.\n\nThe Office of Management and Budget (OMB)published a proposed rule referred to as the \u201cUniform Guidance\u201d that would \u201cexpand political control of scientific grants, downgrade the role of peer review and effectively limit researchers\u2019 ability to disseminate their findings.\u201d Ultimately, the rule would allow political appointees to cancel grants if recipients do not conform to the President\u2019s\u2013or Kennedy\u2019s\u2013political views.\n\nJune 2026\n\nUnder Kennedy\u2019s leadership, Americans continue to lose health insurance coverage. 3 million Americans have dropped or lost their ACA marketplace coverage in 2026, many of whom are working and middle-class Americans who can no longer afford the premiums that skyrocketed after Kennedy and Republicans failed to extend middle-class tax credits beyond January 1, 2026. In testimony before Congress, completely indifferent to the struggle of these families, Kennedy said: \u201cThe only people who lost coverage were people who were never entitled to coverage.\u201d This statement is false.\n\nThe American Medical Association elected a fiercely vocal critic of Kennedy as its next president. Dr. Sandra Fryhofer has said that continuing to deal pragmatically with Kennedy would be an abdication of physicians\u2019 moral duty, and she cited \u201cmeasles running rampant, public health destroyed, a trillion dollars ripped from Medicaid, inadequate physician payment, stupid immigration rules\u201d as reasons the AMA must resist Kennedy and the Trump Administration more forcefully. She has called Kennedy \u201cthe anti-vax HHS secretary\u201d and expressed frustration and regret that the AMA did not do more to block his confirmation.\n\nContinuing his efforts to mine patient data, Kennedy is seekingaccess to Americans\u2019 highly sensitive medical records\u2013things like clinical notes, lab results, and diagnoses\u2013from state-run health information exchange systems, as part of his effort to \u201cinvestigate\u201d and connect vaccines to autism. This raises major privacy and legal concerns. Over and over again, Kennedy has proven that he is willing to do anything \u2013 including things beyond his legal authority \u2013 to support his conspiracy theories.\n\nUnder Kennedy\u2019s leadership, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued an interim final rule (IFR) that dictates how states must implement the Medicaid work reporting requirements that congressional Republicans enacted last year. The rule creates a bureaucratic maze that will make it harder for Americans to access care when they need it most. As an example of the rule\u2019s most draconian provisions, Medicaid enrollees who suffer from chronic illnesses, like cancer or HIV, are still required to work during periods when the government has determined that their illness is not serious enough to prevent them from working; the penalty for failure to comply is losing their Medicaid coverage\u2013while navigating a serious chronic illness. Every Senate Democrat denounced the rule and called for its withdrawal.\n\n23 states and the District of Columbia sued Kennedy and HHS, asking a federal court to enjoin and vacate the Medicaid work reporting requirements IFR. The states argued in their complaint that the rule exceeds the agency\u2019s statutory authority, will strip benefits from eligible enrollees due to paperwork errors, will place enormous administrative burdens on state governments, and will force hospitals to provide much more uncompensated emergency care as medically frail Americans lose their Medicaid coverage.\n\nKennedy\u2019s incompetence is apparent even to other members of the President\u2019s cabinet, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio is attempting to clean up Kennedy\u2019s mess. Testifying before Congress, Rubio said that the State Department is \u201cgoing to re-engage\u201d on global vaccines after Kennedy withdrew the U.S. from the global vaccine alliance and withheld $600 million previously appropriated by Congress. This program provides immunizations to people living in low-income countries around the world, and it manages the global stockpile of Ebola vaccines.\n\nAmericans are already facing dire consequences from the \u201chorrendous\u201d rollout of CMS\u2019 WISeR model. Under Kennedy\u2019s leadership, the WISeR pilot program is using artificial intelligence to delay and deny certain procedures covered by traditional Medicare. Seniors now face needless prior authorization for care that their providers ordered. CMS Administrator Oz illustrated how clueless and callous Kennedy\u2019s team can be: Oz defended WISeR by criticizing frontline health care providers and saying that the purpose of WISeR is to make sure patients are not getting \u201cthe care some unscrupulous doctor wants to use on you.\u201d\n\nKennedy engaged in unlawful election interference in at least two Congressional races. Reports emerged that he has personally called two Libertarian candidates for Congress in Iowa and urged them to drop out of their respective races so that it is easier for Republicans to win those seats and to maintain their majority in the House of Representatives. Kennedy reportedly said to one such candidate, \u201cIf this seat flips, it\u2019ll make my life hell.\u201d\n\nSenator Sanders publicly released a tranche of emails that reveal new details about how Kennedy has tried to seize control of apolitical public health systems at the CDC to undermine vaccine access. One email chain shows a CDC staffer writing, \u201cAndrew Nixon/HHS\u2026asked that we pull out of circulation all campaign ad buys related to flu or anything encouraging shots or vaccinations.\u201d The same chain shows Andrew Nixon confirming, \u201cThis was a direct ask from Secretary Kennedy.\u201d\n\nJuly 2026\n\nUnder Kennedy\u2019s leadership, measles cases have reached an all-time high since the virus was declared eliminated in the United States in 2000. As of July, there have been more measles cases reported in the first six months of 2026 than in any other full year since 2000. At the same time, Kennedy has interrupted funding for vaccine hesitancy research, has downplayed the risks of measles in his public comments, and continues to hunt for evidence that vaccines are unsafe.\n\nUnder Kennedy\u2019s leadership, a cyclospora outbreak continues to tear through 15 states and counting. There have been more cases of cyclospora reported in the United States this year than ever before, and as the case count climbs, CDC\u2019s FoodNet has recently stopped its mandatory reporting for cyclospora and other pathogens due to funding cuts. The foodborne parasite causes severe diarrhea and nausea, leaving infants, seniors, and immunocompromised persons especially vulnerable. Kennedy said that the outbreak is \u201cunder control\u201d and that funding cuts to the FoodNet program were cuts to \u201credundant surveillance.\u201d Mere weeks later, the first two deaths from cyclospora were reported in Michigan.\n\nUnder Kennedy\u2019s leadership, the Trump Administration is working to defund and dismantle the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program, abruptly canceling 53 of the program\u2019s 67 grants nationwide. The Administration\u2019s guidelines for the next round of grants require prospective grantees to teach that abstinence is the only way to prevent teen pregnancy, and that \u201cmarriage and procreation\u201d are important. Several grantees who were abruptly stripped of their funding sued Kennedy, arguing that \u201cCongress plainly did not intend H.H.S. to focus on teaching young women strategies to become pregnant in a pregnancy prevention program.\u201d\n\nFor the fourth time, Kennedy has prevented the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) from meeting as planned; the panel has not convened in person since March 2025. USPSTF has historically met three times a year to review evidence and make recommendations that determine what insurance companies are required to cover when it comes to mammograms, colonoscopies, depression screenings, and other primary and preventive care. Kennedy has fired two of the task force\u2019s leaders, refused to replace members whose terms expired, and hamstrung the task force\u2019s ability to operate as usual.\n\nA federal district court enjoined much of CMS\u2019s 2027 Notice of Benefit Payment Parameters final rule. The rule, which was slated to become effective July 20 and was finalized under Kennedy\u2019s leadership, would have raised out-of-pocket maximums for certain bronze and catastrophic plans, pushed more Americans into these catastrophic plans, and loosened federal network adequacy requirements. Before the court\u2019s injunction, the rule had been widely criticized, and the American Hospital Association noted in its comment letter that the rule would allow deductibles over $15,000 on some catastrophic plans\u2013a \u201cdeductible amount [that] itself could easily be considered catastrophic for many individuals in these income ranges.\u201d\n\nUnder Kennedy\u2019s leadership, CMS continues to endanger patients and their families by sharing Medicaid enrollment data with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in defiance of a federal judge\u2019s order to pause all data sharing. In December 2025, U.S. District Court Judge Vince Chhabria ruled that CMS was permitted to share a narrow universe of Medicaid data\u2013only some information about persons without lawful immigration status residing in plaintiff states. In January, however, CMS twice shared data with ICE that went beyond what the December 2025 order had allowed, including records identifying U.S. citizens and refugees; in response to this revelation, Judge Chhabria ordered CMS to pause all data sharing with ICE in late May. During this pause, CMS again shared the same dataset that was improperly shared in January\u2013files that include the names and addresses of U.S. citizens and persons residing in the United States with lawful immigration status.\n\nKennedy continues using his government position to undermine vaccines and enrich himself personally. On the same day that Dr. Anthony Fauci testified before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Kennedy was busy posting on social media that his book about Dr. Fauci became a \u201cbestseller\u2026despite being the most censored book of the decade.\u201d The hearing reportedly resulted in a spike in book sales, and Kennedy\u2019s royalties go directly to the organization he previously founded to undermine vaccine access.\n\nUnder Kennedy\u2019s leadership, the CDC updated a footnote on its \u201cAutism and Vaccines\u201d webpage to say: \u201cScientists have not identified the root causes of autism. HHS continues to support rigorous scientific research and will update this page as reliable new evidence becomes available.\u201d The webpage still declares front and center, however, that \u201cthe claim \u2018vaccines do not cause autism\u2019 is not an evidence-based claim because studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism.\u201d This statement is false. Vaccines do not cause autism; this is a fact well supported by decades of scientific literature.\n\nIn a disastrous interview on CNN, Kennedy said that he bears no responsibility for the current measles outbreak and said, \u201cThe reason we\u2019re having a measles outbreak is because of the Covid lockdowns.\u201d This is patently untrue.\n\nKennedy continues to interfere with federal vaccine panel priorities. The National Vaccine Advisory Committee quietly unveiled new guidance which adds dietary supplements for infectious disease prevention to the panel\u2019s scope and directs the committee to consider \u201chealthy lifestyle\u201d strategies, off-label uses of existing drugs, and supplements for people who decline vaccination. Kennedy is using federal vaccine infrastructure to elevate alternative-health talking points over proven immunization strategies. The panel Congress created to strengthen immunization is now being used to develop talking points for avoiding it.\n\nAugust 2026\n\nUnder Kennedy\u2019s leadership, the HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) has awarded $150 million for the legal representation of unaccompanied children in immigration proceedings to a small law firm in Houston. Burke Law Group has only 26 attorneys, none of whom had publicly claimed immigration and asylum law experience prior to the announcement of the award. Until July 31, ORR had a contract for this vital legal work with the Acacia Center for Justice, a group that marshaled best-in-class immigration lawyers, with decades of experience representing unaccompanied children, from over 100 nonprofit organizations across the country. This abrupt and unexplainable shift will leave more than 20,000 children to appear in immigration court with inadequate legal representation\u2013or with none at all.\n\nTrump \u2013 with Kennedy at his side \u2013 signed yet another executive order in August, attempting again to overhaul federal vaccine recommendations, lowering the number of recommended immunizations from 18 to 11, pressuring states to change their vaccine policies, and directing federal health agencies to develop a plan for administering combined shots \u2013 like the MMR vaccine \u2013 as separate, single disease injections, despite health experts agreeing there is\u201cno scientific basis for changing course.\u201d Trump continues to spread lies about the MMR vaccine, including by saying that it could be \u201cquite lethal,\u201d an outlandish claim that is uniformly rejected by clinicians, experts, and fact-checkers.\n\nKennedycancelled over $250 million in grants administered by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), impacting over 200 different research projects across nearly 30 states. These grants aim to improve patient safety, outcomes, and health care delivery, with some specifically focused on training rural health care workers, improving delivery systems for dialysis patients, and improving autism services. A project in Maryland aimed at improving patient safety via telehealth was cancelled as part of the reckless cuts. The official cancellation capped a long delay in funding for these projects, with researchers left waiting in the dark to learn more about their status. Despite Congress appropriating $345 million to AHRQ, less than $15 million has actually gone out the door to grantees.\n\nThe American Medical Association, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Infectious Diseases Society of America, and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists rebuked Kennedy\u2019s latest sham vaccine guidance bydelivering their own independent vaccine evidence review and guidance on the flu, COVID, and RSV vaccines. The nation\u2019s leading medical societies were forced to create their own vaccine guidance because of the lack of credible information coming out of Kennedy\u2019s HHS.\n\nKennedy visited the CDC\u2019s headquarters on the anniversary of the tragic shooting at the campus last year \u2013 which was fueled, in part, by Kennedy\u2019s own vaccine misinformation. Instead of recognizing the consequences of his harmful rhetoric, Kennedyquestioned scientists, telling civil servants at the agency that \u201cyou can\u2019t just trust a scientist, because scientists have biases, too,\u201d and accusing CDC scientists of \u201call hoarding their own data.\u201dKennedy has long been fighting for his anti-vaccine cronies to have direct access to the sensitive data from the agency\u2019s vaccine-safety surveillance system.\n\nKennedy\u2019s efforts to undermine trust in vaccines and public health systems continue to have deadly consequences. Pennsylvania announced two measles-associated deaths in Lancaster County, the state\u2019s first such deaths since 1991. Following the deaths,Governor Shapiro said that Kennedy\u2019s \u201cactions and his rhetoric coming from this administration are having a negative impact on communities across America, particularly right here in Pennsylvania. That there\u2019s real-life consequences to spreading misinformation.\u201d Kennedy then publicly cast doubt on whether measles was responsible and suggested that the deaths may have been \u2018fabricated.\u2019 He also postedan incoherent screed on social media about how the MMR vaccine is composed of aborted fetal tissue, citing depositions from vaccine opponent and close professional ally, Aaron Siri.\n\nNew documents and reporting prove thatKennedy lied to Congress in his confirmation hearings. Kennedy repeatedly told lawmakers, including Ranking Member Wyden, last year that his 2019 visit to Samoa before its deadly measles outbreak \u201chad nothing to do with vaccines.\u201d Yet, letters show that Kennedy wrote to Samoan leaders on Children\u2019s Health Defense letterhead, asking to study Samoa\u2019s use of the MMR vaccine. Kennedy wrote to the Prime Minister on January 20, 2019: \u201cI would propose my team conduct [a] detailed health informatics assessment in Samoa of what happened with your MMR vaccines.\u201d Senator Wyden has called for the Department of Justice to launch a criminal investigation into Kennedy\u2019s lies: \u201cRFK\u2019s platform is built on lies and grifts that leave a trail of dead children in their wake. There are consequences for lying to Congress.\u201d\n\nSeptember 2026\n\nDespite the rampant measles outbreaks on Kennedy\u2019s watch, including two additional measles-associated deaths in Pennsylvania, the CDCalleged it \u201cdid not have any records to indicate \u2018measles is the underlying cause\u2019 of any deaths in the country this year.\u201d Kennedy refuses to take any responsibility for his role in this crisis, and he works to deny and downplay it. He asked CDC Director Dr. Erica Schwartz to remove two Pennsylvania deaths from the CDC\u2019s online measles tally, and she implemented his request.\n\nKennedy\u2019s war against reproductive rights has spilled over to other federal agencies: the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it will now test drinking water for the presence of abortion medications like mifepristone and misoprostol, as well as for contraceptives. Senator Wyden has previously condemned this tactic as \u201ca shadow war on reproductive rights\u201d and \u201can egregious abuse of power.\u201d\n\nOver a year after Kennedy worked with Congressional Republicans to kill enhanced Affordable Care Act premium tax credits and kick people off their coverage, Americans who buy their own coverage are nowincreasingly being steered toward short term limited-duration health plans instead of comprehensive marketplace coverage.\n\nKennedy gave the keynote address to the anti-vaccine organization he used to run, Children\u2019s Health Defense. He spent more than 20 minutes casting doubt on the safety of vaccines and attempting to falsely connect adverse events and chronic disease with pediatric immunizations. At the same conference, the current President of the MAHA Institute called the success of the polio vaccine \u201ca massive medical fraud.\u201d The polio vaccine saves lives.\n\nAs Kennedy continues to sow chaos and paralysis across federal health agencies, states have not been able to obtain COVID-19 shots from the CDC for distribution to millions of children who rely on the Vaccines for Children program. Asked about the delay, HHS said it is \u201cfinalizing decisions,\u201d all while COVID levels climb and medically fragile children wait.\n\nIn the latest example of Kennedy\u2019s corruption, the Secretary and top aide Stefanie Spearused military aircraft for his travels to campaign for Republican candidates \u2013 a clear breach of protocol for non-defense Cabinet officials. The Air Force jet that Kennedy used costs about $9,000 per hour \u2013 a clear waste of taxpayer dollars for political purposes.\n\nKennedy continues to personally and financially benefit from his position: hereportedly received $250,000 in gifts towards lavish vacations from a major donor, including free flights to Fiji and Greece.\n\nKennedy took what reporting described as a\u201cbackdoor approach to stop vaccines\u201d by purging experts from important federal advisory committees and replacing them with unqualified anti-vaccine ideologues and allies.\n\nAfter previously attempting to shutter the Office of Minority Health, Kennedy and his team abruptly cancelled half of the office\u2019s existing grants. The affected grantees had been providing cancer screenings and postpartum home visits as well as working to reduce first responder suicide and to lower the obesity rates among Native American youth. It was subsequently reported that HHS told Congressional appropriators it would move $12 million from the Office of Minority Health directly to the Secretary\u2019s office to cover rising costs for RFK\u2019s personal security detail.\n\nKennedy\u2019s handpicked nominees to help lead his Department \u2013 including Chris Klomp to be the Deputy Secretary, Nicole Saphier to be Surgeon General, and Timothy Westlake to run the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration \u2013 faced hearings at both the Senate Finance and Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committees. At both hearings, the MAHA aspirants demonstrated that they would immediately fall in line as Kennedy\u2019s lieutenants. Chris Klomp, who negotiated the White House\u2019s secretive drug pricing deals with pharmaceutical companies, continued making excuses for his failure to share the agreements with Congress.\n\nAfter delaying its meetings for over a year and a half, bashing its members as \u201clackadaisical and negligent,\u201d and firing its leaders in May, Kennedyannounced eight new appointments to the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF). USPSTF is the committee that determines what preventive screenings or medical services must be covered free of charge by private insurance. Many of the new appointees share Kennedy\u2019s vaccine skepticism.\n\n###", 1, "2026-09-25T10:04:52Z", "2026-09-25T10:05:46Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.alsobrooks.senate.gov/news/press-releases/alsobrooks-wyden-continue-to-build-the-case-against-rfk-jr-8/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.6719930097460747, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}