The Hill – “More than 750 current and former staff members of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) are calling on Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to stop “spreading inaccurate health information” and do more to protect public health professionals in the wake of a shooting at the headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) earlier this month. The letter, sent Wednesday to Kennedy and members of Congress, accused the secretary of endangering the nation’s health and the lives of his employees with his rhetoric. The staff members noted the Aug. 8 attack “was not random.” “The attack came amid growing mistrust in public institutions, driven by politicized rhetoric that has turned public health professionals from trusted experts into targets of villainization—and now, violence,” the letter noted. Law enforcement officials said the alleged shooter was distrustful of the COVID-19 vaccine and thought he had been harmed by it. The shooter allegedly fired 500 rounds, and about 200 struck six different CDC buildings, pockmarking windows across the main Atlanta campus. DeKalb County, Ga., police officer David Rose was fatally shot, and the letter writers said they wanted to honor him.

CDC is a public health leader in America’s defense against health threats at home and abroad. When a federal health agency is under attack, America’s health is under attack. When the federal workforce is not safe, America is not safe,” the letter stated. The staffers emphasized they signed the letter in their personal capacities, and some remained anonymous “out of fear of retaliation and personal safety.”