Warren, Duckworth, Blunt Rochester Slam RFK Jr. for Limiting Access to Covid-19 Vaccines, Endangering Children and Pregnant Women
These changes represent a significant public health threat that will endanger millions of Americans.
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), and Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE) sent a letter to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), condemning changes to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) recommended vaccine schedule that would dramatically limit access to COVID-19 vaccines for pregnant women and pose additional barriers to vaccinating children, needlessly endangering both groups’ health.
In their letter, the senators slam the decision as anti-science and politically motivated, criticizing Secretary Kennedy for making the policy change without input from HHS’s vaccine experts, failing to provide scientific justification for the decision, and confirming their longstanding concerns that he would enact unscientific, anti-vax policies as HHS Secretary—despite his clamoring before Senate committees that he would not restrict vaccine access.
“Your politically driven, anti-science decision—made suddenly and behind closed doors, without input from the public or scientific and medical communities—flies in the face of your commitment to ‘not…take away anybody’s vaccines’ and will lead to an untold number of preventable illness and death of Americans,” wrote the senators.
“Enabled by President Trump and fueled by decades of anti-vaccine skepticism, you appear to be establishing a roadmap by which the United States’ government can implement unscientific, anti-vaccination policies,” the lawmakers continued. “By sowing distrust, creating chaos and justifying your actions with misinformation, you are laying the groundwork to undermine access to other safe, effective vaccines, including for those that prevent diseases like whooping cough, measles and more.”
In the letter, the senators also condemned HHS’s new approval process for the annual COVID-19 vaccine, which will significantly delay access to updated FDA-approved vaccines, further jeopardizing the health and lives of the American people. The senators requested a response to their questions by June 18, 2025.
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