Alsobrooks, Wyden Continue to Build the Case Against RFK Jr.

After releasing a report chronicling every day of RFK Jr.'s 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.

September 24, 2026

WASHINGTON, DC - RFK Jr. continues to harm the American people. On September 4, 2025, Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden and Senator Angela Alsobrooks released 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.

Below are Kennedy's latest harmful actions (May 15 - September 20):

May 2026

1. The White House issued an executive order straight from Kennedy's wish list: directing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and its Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) to "take any appropriate steps to update the United States childhood and adolescent vaccine schedule" in line with the recommendations made by Kennedy's team at HHS. Under Kennedy's 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.

1. In his endless quest to find support for the conspiracy theory that vaccines cause autism, Kennedy announced his intent to tap into Americans' private medical records and create what amounts to a national autism registry. He announced a "real-world platform" that will mine patient records from Medicare and Medicaid, which collectively cover 40% of Americans, to "uncover the root causes of autism and other chronic diseases." 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.

1. After 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 the same pattern he used to politicize the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
2. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) published a proposed rule referred to as the "Uniform Guidance" that would "expand political control of scientific grants, downgrade the role of peer review and effectively limit researchers' ability to disseminate their findings." Ultimately, the rule would allow political appointees to cancel grants if recipients do not conform to the President's-or Kennedy's-political views.

June 2026

1. Under Kennedy's 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: "The only people who lost coverage were people who were never entitled to coverage." This statement is false.

1. The 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' moral duty, and she cited "measles running rampant, public health destroyed, a trillion dollars ripped from Medicaid, inadequate physician payment, stupid immigration rules" as reasons the AMA must resist Kennedy and the Trump Administration more forcefully. She has called Kennedy "the anti-vax HHS secretary" and expressed frustration and regret that the AMA did not do more to block his confirmation.

1. Continuing his efforts to mine patient data, Kennedy is seeking access to Americans' highly sensitive medical records-things like clinical notes, lab results, and diagnoses-from state-run health information exchange systems, as part of his effort to "investigate" 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 - including things beyond his legal authority - to support his conspiracy theories.

1. Under Kennedy's 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's 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-while navigating a serious chronic illness. Every Senate Democrat denounced the rule and called for its withdrawal.

1. 23 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's 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.

1. Kennedy's incompetence is apparent even to other members of the President's cabinet, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio is attempting to clean up Kennedy's mess. Testifying before Congress, Rubio said that the State Department is "going to re-engage" 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.

1. Americans are already facing dire consequences from the "horrendous" rollout of CMS' WISeR model. Under Kennedy's 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's 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 "the care some unscrupulous doctor wants to use on you."

1. Kennedy 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, "If this seat flips, it'll make my life hell."

1. Senator 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, "Andrew Nixon/HHS…asked that we pull out of circulation all campaign ad buys related to flu or anything encouraging shots or vaccinations." The same chain shows Andrew Nixon confirming, "This was a direct ask from Secretary Kennedy."

July 2026

1. Under Kennedy's 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.

1. Under Kennedy's 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's 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 "under control" and that funding cuts to the FoodNet program were cuts to "redundant surveillance." Mere weeks later, the first two deaths from cyclospora were reported in Michigan.

1. Under Kennedy's leadership, the Trump Administration is working to defund and dismantle the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program, abruptly canceling 53 of the program's 67 grants nationwide. The Administration's guidelines for the next round of grants require prospective grantees to teach that abstinence is the only way to prevent teen pregnancy, and that "marriage and procreation" are important. Several grantees who were abruptly stripped of their funding sued Kennedy, arguing that "Congress plainly did not intend H.H.S. to focus on teaching young women strategies to become pregnant in a pregnancy prevention program."

1. For 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's leaders, refused to replace members whose terms expired, and hamstrung the task force's ability to operate as usual.

1. A federal district court enjoined much of CMS's 2027 Notice of Benefit Payment Parameters final rule. The rule, which was slated to become effective July 20 and was finalized under Kennedy's 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's 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-a "deductible amount [that] itself could easily be considered catastrophic for many individuals in these income ranges."

1. Under Kennedy's 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's 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-only 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-files that include the names and addresses of U.S. citizens and persons residing in the United States with lawful immigration status.

1. Kennedy 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 "bestseller…despite being the most censored book of the decade." The hearing reportedly resulted in a spike in book sales, and Kennedy's royalties go directly to the organization he previously founded to undermine vaccine access.

1. Under Kennedy's leadership, the CDC updated a footnote on its "Autism and Vaccines" webpage to say: "Scientists 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." The webpage still declares front and center, however, that "the claim 'vaccines do not cause autism' is not an evidence-based claim because studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism." This statement is false. Vaccines do not cause autism; this is a fact well supported by decades of scientific literature.

1. In a disastrous interview on CNN, Kennedy said that he bears no responsibility for the current measles outbreak and said, "The reason we're having a measles outbreak is because of the Covid lockdowns." This is patently untrue.
2. Kennedy 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's scope and directs the committee to consider "healthy lifestyle" 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.

August 2026

1. Under Kennedy's 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-or with none at all.

1. Trump - with Kennedy at his side - 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 - like the MMR vaccine - as separate, single disease injections, despite health experts agreeing there is "no scientific basis for changing course." Trump continues to spread lies about the MMR vaccine, including by saying that it could be "quite lethal," an outlandish claim that is uniformly rejected by clinicians, experts, and fact-checkers.

1. Kennedy cancelled 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.

1. The 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's latest sham vaccine guidance by delivering their own independent vaccine evidence review and guidance on the flu, COVID, and RSV vaccines. The nation's leading medical societies were forced to create their own vaccine guidance because of the lack of credible information coming out of Kennedy's HHS.

1. Kennedy visited the CDC's headquarters on the anniversary of the tragic shooting at the campus last year - which was fueled, in part, by Kennedy's own vaccine misinformation. Instead of recognizing the consequences of his harmful rhetoric, Kennedy questioned scientists, telling civil servants at the agency that "you can't just trust a scientist, because scientists have biases, too," and accusing CDC scientists of "all hoarding their own data." Kennedy has long been fighting for his anti-vaccine cronies to have direct access to the sensitive data from the agency's vaccine-safety surveillance system.

1. Kennedy's 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's first such deaths since 1991. Following the deaths, Governor Shapiro said that Kennedy's "actions and his rhetoric coming from this administration are having a negative impact on communities across America, particularly right here in Pennsylvania. That there's real-life consequences to spreading misinformation." Kennedy then publicly cast doubt on whether measles was responsible and suggested that the deaths may have been 'fabricated.' He also posted an 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.

1. New documents and reporting prove that Kennedy 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 "had nothing to do with vaccines." Yet, letters show that Kennedy wrote to Samoan leaders on Children's Health Defense letterhead, asking to study Samoa's use of the MMR vaccine. Kennedy wrote to the Prime Minister on January 20, 2019: "I would propose my team conduct [a] detailed health informatics assessment in Samoa of what happened with your MMR vaccines." Senator Wyden has called for the Department of Justice to launch a criminal investigation into Kennedy's lies: "RFK's platform is built on lies and grifts that leave a trail of dead children in their wake. There are consequences for lying to Congress."

September 2026

1. Despite the rampant measles outbreaks on Kennedy's watch, including two additional measles-associated deaths in Pennsylvania, the CDC alleged it "did not have any records to indicate 'measles is the underlying cause' of any deaths in the country this year." 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's online measles tally, and she implemented his request.
2. Kennedy's 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 "a shadow war on reproductive rights" and "an egregious abuse of power."
3. Over 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 now increasingly being steered toward short term limited-duration health plans instead of comprehensive marketplace coverage.
4. Kennedy gave the keynote address to the anti-vaccine organization he used to run, Children's 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 "a massive medical fraud." The polio vaccine saves lives.

1. As 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 "finalizing decisions," all while COVID levels climb and medically fragile children wait.

1. In the latest example of Kennedy's corruption, the Secretary and top aide Stefanie Spear used military aircraft for his travels to campaign for Republican candidates - a clear breach of protocol for non-defense Cabinet officials. The Air Force jet that Kennedy used costs about $9,000 per hour - a clear waste of taxpayer dollars for political purposes.

1. Kennedy continues to personally and financially benefit from his position: he reportedly received $250,000 in gifts towards lavish vacations from a major donor, including free flights to Fiji and Greece.

1. Kennedy took what reporting described as a "backdoor approach to stop vaccines" by purging experts from important federal advisory committees and replacing them with unqualified anti-vaccine ideologues and allies.

1. After previously attempting to shutter the Office of Minority Health, Kennedy and his team abruptly cancelled half of the office's 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's office to cover rising costs for RFK's personal security detail.

1. Kennedy's handpicked nominees to help lead his Department - 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 - 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's lieutenants. Chris Klomp, who negotiated the White House's secretive drug pricing deals with pharmaceutical companies, continued making excuses for his failure to share the agreements with Congress.

1. After delaying its meetings for over a year and a half, bashing its members as "lackadaisical and negligent," and firing its leaders in May, Kennedy announced 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's vaccine skepticism.

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