Debra Houry says RFK Jr. should resign

    Dr. Debra Houry testifies before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
    Dr. Debra Houry testifies before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions hearing to examine reviewing recent events at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and implications for children's health on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

    Dr. Debra Houry, the CDC’s former chief medical officer who recently submitted her resignation due to disagreements over how Kennedy is overseeing the agency, said Wednesday that Kennedy should step down as HHS secretary.

    “After seeing his Senate finance testimony, and the number of misstatements, seeing what he has asked our scientists to do, and to compromise our integrity, and the children that have died under his watch, I think he should resign,” she said of Kennedy during the Senate hearing.

    Kennedy has defended his actions, saying there is a “deeply embedded, I would say, malaise at the agency” that has sidelined it from a commitment to approaching science without political bias or capitulation to big corporations.