Kennedy’s sister, Kerry Kennedy, and his nephew, Joseph P. Kennedy III, issued scathing statements Friday, calling for him to resign as head of the Health and Human Services Department.
The calls from the prominent Democratic family came a day after Kennedy had to defend his recent efforts to pull back COVID-19 vaccine recommendations and fire high-level officials at the Centers for Disease Control at a three-hour Senate hearing.
This is not the first time Kennedy has been the subject of his family’s ire. Several of his relatives had objected to his presidential run in the last campaign, while others wrote to senators earlier this year, calling for them to reject his nomination to be Trump’s health secretary due to views they considered disqualifying on life-saving vaccines.
Kennedy, a longtime leader in the anti-vaccine movement, has spent the last seven months implementing his once-niche, grassroots movement to the highest level of America’s public health system. The sweeping changes to the agencies tasked with public health policy and scientific research have resulted in thousands of layoffs and the remaking of vaccine guidelines.
