After releasing a 54-page 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.
October 23, 2025
WASHINGTON, DC – Despite the Republican shutdown, RFK Jr. continues to harm the American people. Senators Alsobrooks and Wyden will continue to release updated actions taken by RFK Jr. and add these acts to their joint report.
Chaos, Corruption, and Costs Continues: Kennedy’s Latest Failings
Below are Kennedy’s latest harmful actions (from October 10– October 23, 2025):
- The Trump health care shutdown drags on as Senate Republicans once again voted down legislation to reopen the federal government, permanently extend middle-class tax credits that make Affordable Care Act (ACA) premiums affordable, repeal Republicans’ largest health care cuts in history, and protect against reckless and unlawful funding cancellations. As open enrollment nears and even more Americans learn their families face catastrophic premium spikes next year, Kennedy stands idly by, allowing a health care affordability crisis to unfold nationwide. Republicans refuse to reopen the federal government and avert a health care crisis that will cause health care premiums to double, on average, and even triple or quadruple for working and middle-class Americans. Kennedy is entirely absent as this crisis unfolds, not unlike House Republicans who refuse to even show up for work.
- Kennedy’s anti-science crusade continues as his hand-picked conspiracy theorists and vaccine skeptics, who now make up the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), announced they would form a workgroup to revisit the childhood vaccine schedule, threatening access to life-saving vaccines for children.
- Spurred on by the White House and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Vought’s cruel shutdown agenda, Kennedy continues his campaign to gut HHS by laying off approximately 1,760 employees, including civil servants that worked on Measles response and produce the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, nearly double the figure projected previously by administration officials. Blaming the initial oversight on “data discrepancies and processing errors” HHS has rescinded hundreds of erroneous layoffs, at the Centers for Disease Control – the latest example of Kennedy causing chaos at the agency.
- As a part of the illegal shutdown firings, Kennedy fired staff that operate the Community Services Block Grant, a program that provides funds to states and local nonprofits to reduce poverty and revitalize low-income communities. Kennedy fired more than 100 people from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, gutting the agency responsible for addressing our nation’s mental health care and substance use crises to half the size it was at the beginning of the year. Kennedy fired employees at the division of Healthy Start at the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), a program which prevents maternal deaths and reduces infant mortality. Kennedy laid off everyone that managed the Title X Family Planning Program and the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program, which together serve low-income and uninsured individuals, offering services like contraception, STI prevention, and family planning. Kennedy fired the HRSA staff tasked with operating the Emergency Medical Services (EMS) for Children program which prevents pediatric deaths.
- The shutdown has forced some hospitals to withdraw from the Acute Hospital Care at Home initiative, which allows hospitals to remotely monitor thousands of seriously-ill but stable patients at home, freeing up hospital beds for other patients. Kennedy has already enabled massive cuts to hospitals through his support of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act – this is the latest way Kennedy’s Department is exacerbating a health care crisis across the country.
- The Food and Drug Administration published its latest personnel numbers, reflecting that in fiscal year 2025, the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research lost 1,093 people and the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research lost 224. Reporting found that these widespread staffing cuts and losses due to Kennedy’s actions have led to a slowdown of the FDA’s review of drugs and delayed review of applications. These cuts are taking a toll on health care jobs nationwide. Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital in Palo Alto, CA, is laying off 87 people; Jefferson Health in Philadelphia, PA, is laying off 650 people; and PacificSource Health Plans in Oregon is laying off 56 people.
- As Kennedy destroys public trust in HHS, governors of fifteen states joined together to launch the Governors Public Health Alliance to share data and coordinate public health policy in the absence of federal leadership.
- New analyses from the non-partisan, independent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) confirm Trump and Kennedy handed an $8.8 billion bailout to Big Pharma in the Republican budget law on the world’s top-selling cancer drugs–nearly double the original estimates. Republicans chose to delay or exempt life-saving cancer medications, like Keytruda and Opdivo, from Medicare drug price negotiations, meaning seniors will continue to pay more for sky-high drugs than they should.
- Kennedy falsely claimed that he is leading the “biggest infusion of federal dollars into rural health care in American history.” In reality, emergency rooms in rural Texas are closing, and a rural clinic in Lake County, California, has been forced to cancel its opening—direct consequences of Trumpcare’s damage to rural health.
- Trump’s litany of false promises to lower prescription drug prices continues as the White House announced another so-called “deal” with AstraZeneca to bring U.S. drug prices in line with other countries. Absent any details whatsoever on the prescription drugs included or the savings secured, Kennedy called it, “this historical achievement… really monumental.” Like Trump’s so-called “deal” with Pfizer, the terms of this agreement with AstraZeneca are confidential, meaning there are no tangible savings or lower costs to announce. AstraZeneca stock was up following the announcement.
- Trump and Kennedy trotted out another dog-and-pony show of empty promises at the White House, this time gaslighting families seeking IVF to have a child. This announcement falls far short of Trump’s campaign promise that he would make IVF free for all Americans – IVF will continue to be out of reach financially for millions. Trump and Kennedy once again made an announcement purporting to help people without any specific details, new policies, or other guarantees. Meanwhile, Republicans’ assault on women’s health care continues as Kennedy undercuts decades of science on safe access to Mifepristone, closes Planned Parenthood clinics and threatens labor & delivery units nationwide, denies pregnant women life-saving emergency care, and more.
- Senate Majority Leader Thune characterized Kennedy’s advice on Tylenol as untrustworthy, encouraging women to speak to their doctors about their health–not Kennedy. Senator Thune joins the Food and Drug Administration, European Medicines Agency, World Health Organization, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine, among others in refuting Kennedy’s unsubstantiated claims.
- Measles cases continue to surge amid Kennedy’s anti-vaccine crusade. The measles outbreaks sweeping the southwest are clustered in communities with vaccination rates below the 95% required to maintain herd immunity. Earlier this year, the number of measles cases in the country hit a 34-year high and two children died, the first measles deaths in the country in a decade.
- Kennedy incited panic among health care providers nationwide with guidance suggesting doctors would not receive any payments from Medicare. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) later reversed course, clarifying that claims will only be held for services affected by the government shutdown. Nevertheless, confusion abounds about how Kennedy will guarantee payment to doctors for essential services seniors rely on, like telehealth, as the Trump health care shutdown drags on.
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