Today marks Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s first year in office as the nation’s president. health secretary, and there is evidence of his rule everywhere. TO growing meat sprout in South Carolina there are nearly 1,000 cases. The childhood vaccination schedule has been reduced from 17 recommended childhood vaccines to 11, against the vehement objections of major medical organizations. Pioneering research has been carried out summarily canceled, clinical trials stoppedand thousands of employees have been purged of the country’s health agencies. The American Academy of Pediatrics has become a voice of resistance.
Since the beginning of Kennedy’s term, Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.), a former prosecutor and Prince George’s County executive, has made it her singular mission to remove him as health secretary. As a member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, he re faces him They have gone viral.
The committee’s chairman, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a doctor and liver specialist, elicited promises from Kennedy to preserve the vaccine infrastructure and publicly wrestled with his conscience, before casting the deciding vote to advance Kennedy’s nomination.
That decision plunged Maryland’s newly elected junior senator into the race. The National Institutes of Health, based in Bethesda, has its staff. When the scientists were fired, her phone “went off the hook,” as she puts it, and agency whistleblowers called her office.
She was the first to issue a non-trust resolution against Kennedy in May, which only four of his colleagues signed. Since then, she and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) have kept a running list of what they call the “costs, chaos and corruption” of his leadership, published today in a 71 page reportwhich he hopes will provide a plan to reverse the damage once he leaves office.
Now, 28 senators have co-signed the censure resolution and joined his “Sick of This” campaign, based on the idea that removing him as Secretary of Health is a matter of life or death for the American people.
A spokesman for Secretary Kennedy, Andrew Nixon, offered a strong defense of his leadership, saying that HHS was “exercising its full authority to deliver results for the American people” and had “confronted long-standing public health challenges with transparency, courage and leading science.” Noting actions ranging from investing in rural health to lowering drug prices and removing petroleum-based dyes from the food supply, Nixon said, “HHS will carry this push through 2026 to strengthen accountability, put patients first, and protect public health.”
rolling stone spoke with Alsobrooks about what motivated his search. Our discussion has been edited for clarity and brevity.
He has spent a year with Kennedy as Secretary of Health. Could you summarize what you think the impact of your leadership has been in the United States?
His leadership has been absolutely disastrous and he has worked almost single-handedly to dismantle our country’s public health system and many of the advances we have made in research, science and medicine. America’s exceptionalism is really based on our progress in the areas of science, research, and medicine. And what he’s done will really set our country back in terms of ours. [worldwide] standing.
What led you to conclude early that it posed a danger to the health of Americans and to act on those concerns?
I arrived at a meeting with him very early. I was there to interview and meet with several of the nominees. I said to him, since I was unqualified, with no experience in research, science or medicine, ‘Are you going to substitute your judgment for that of scientists and doctors who have worked in these areas for decades?’ And he said, without hesitation: ‘I will replace bad scientists with good scientists.’ And then I knew we were really in a lot of trouble. That’s how it started.
Let me ask you about an interaction you had with him that went viral. At your confirmation hearing before the HELP committee, where you claimed that African Americans have a different immune system, you pointedly asked him: ‘Should someone like me get different vaccines?’ And his response led you to say that his response was very dangerous. What were the dangers you saw at that time?
He grossly mischaracterized a study that he said advocated for the proposition that African Americans should have a different vaccination schedule than everyone else. Immediately after the hearing, the doctor who actually published the study He came out and said that what the secretary said is simply not supported by the study or science.
I have a daughter, and I know there are a number of younger parents who need to be able to trust the information and advice that comes from the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and hear him give information like that, information that was immediately refuted by the doctor who actually wrote that study. My real mission has been to make sure parents understand that they cannot trust anything that comes out of their agency’s leadership and that the misinformation they have continued to spread is very dangerous for them and their children’s health, and that they should consult with their doctors and pediatricians.
You’re saying he’s lying. Do you see him as someone who lies outside of an ideological agenda, or someone who is simply confused about science?
I think he definitely has an ideological agenda, and I think that agenda is to be proven right about the theories he claims. But I also think that if you tell a lie often enough, you might even believe it.
Do you think Senator Cassidy regrets his vote and believes that voting for Kennedy was a violation of his Hippocratic Oath?
Senator Cassidy is a liver doctor and the hepatitis vaccine is important to him. He offered his support, almost conditionally, based on the statements of Secretary Kennedy, who, again, actually lied at that confirmation hearing. Believe [Kennedy] He must account for what he has done.
When he started his Sick of It campaign and introduced a censure resolution, he was the first to come out with it, and now it seems like he’s gotten support for it. Can you talk a little bit about why you did that and where things are now?
When I originally introduced the resolution of disapproval, there was very little support for it. In fact, only four others signed. It came about while I was watching all the chaos happening within these agencies. People inside the NIH told me they were rational gloves. Supplies were so scarce that they had to cut paper towels in half and they were rationalizing bleach. Mass layoffs now number about 20,000 by health agencies and those are just the numbers we have. We have been requesting additional data since late last year. We knew the decisions he made would make Americans sick.
Given South Carolina’s disease outbreak that shows no signs of abating, do you think there is some kind of line we could cross as a nation that would lead Republicans to join you in calling for your resignation?
I think whatever it is, we’ve already crossed the line. We have several doctors on the health committee. I think you can see the danger: the meat resurgence, the kind of flu season we just had, all these diseases that everyone understands we’ve been able to successfully contain. There is nothing partisan about the health of our country.
Recently, Dr. Mehmet Oz called on Americans to get vaccinated against meat. Do you think that’s a sign that the White House and others within HHS believe Kennedy has failed by not more openly supporting vaccination?
I think they obviously don’t agree with the direction the agency is taking. If you ask people to get vaccinated, it is an acknowledgment that this is an issue that needs to be addressed. It also speaks of the urgency of it. It’s why it’s important for me and others to continue to sound the alarm and help parents understand that they can’t trust a single word that comes out of this man or his administration’s mouth, and that they need to talk to their healthcare providers. It’s a matter of life or death.
