New Congress Must Fight to Save Public Health

Defend Public Health Calls for Swift Action Against RFK Jr.’s Malfeasance

With a dramatic shift in control, the new Congress that begins work in January must move swiftly to rescue U.S. public health from the tide of destruction and disinformation perpetrated by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the rest of the Trump administration, members of Defend Public Health said today.

“We face a genuine public health emergency due to Secretary Kennedy’s relentless malfeasance and dishonesty plus the administration’s brutal funding cuts,” said DPH Coordinating Committee member Julie Scofield, who served for many years as executive director of NASTAD.

“We’re heartened that a number of public health champions have been elected, both to Congress and statehouses, including Abdul El Sayed as senator from Michigan, Amy Acton as Ohio governor, and many others. The new and re-energized Congress can begin to stop the damage and start rebuilding – by reasserting its Constitutional authority over spending and investigating and fully airing Kennedy’s record of dishonesty and public health malpractice – a process that should lead to impeaching and removing Kennedy from office.”

Specifically, DPH is calling on the new Congress to:

Reassert its authority over spending and restore devastating cuts to health research, food safety and disease monitoring.
Permanently kill the rule proposed in June by the Office of Management and Budget designed to politicize virtually all federal grants, including those for public health and medical research. Even if the lame duck Congress continues the current pause on the rule’s implementation, the next Congress may well need to act to make the prohibition permanent.
Repeal provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) and restore full funding for programs vital to Americans’ health that were brutally cut by the current Congress and the president, including Medicaid, SNAP, other food assistance, in addition to failing to extend the Affordable Care Act premium tax credits. According to many experts, the OBBBA will cause millions of people to become uninsured, with some of the worst provisions taking effect in 2027.
Investigate the continuing dishonesty and malfeasance of Sec. Kennedy and the cronies with whom he has packed federal health agencies, including Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz and National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya, with extensive public hearings to lay out the full record.
Based on those investigations, begin the process of impeaching and removing Kennedy from office.

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Defend Public Health is a volunteer-driven network of public health researchers, healthcare workers, advocates and allies fighting to protect the health of all from the Trump administration's cruel attacks on proven, science-based public health policies. We believe that everyone has the right to what they need for a healthy life, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, disability, sexual orientation, gender or gender identity.
DefendPublicHealth.org