750 HHS employees send signed letter to RFK Jr. asking him to stop spreading misinformation
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(WASHINGTON) — More than 750 employees across the Department of Health and Human Services sent a signed letter to members of Congress and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Wednesday morning, calling on the secretary to stop spreading misinformation.
The letter states the deadly shooting that occurred at the Atlanta headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Aug. 8 was “not random” and was driven by “politicized rhetoric.”
Authorities said the 30-year-old gunman — who killed a police officer in the attack — had been harboring yearslong grievances with the COVID-19 vaccine. He believed he suffered negative health effects after he got the vaccine, and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation found written documents at his home indicating that he wanted to make his discontent known.
The signatories are accusing Kennedy of endangering the lives of HHS employees by spreading misinformation.
Kennedy, who oversees the CDC, has peddled vaccine skepticism throughout his career. Before becoming health secretary, Kennedy falsely called the COVID-19 vaccine the “deadliest vaccine ever made.”
HHS did not return ABC News’ request for comment.
“Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is complicit in dismantling America’s public health infrastructure and endangering the nation’s health by repeatedly spreading inaccurate health information,” the letter states.
The employees pointed to various examples, such as Kennedy referring to the CDC as a “cesspool of corruption” in a post on X and falsely claiming mRNA vaccines “failed to protect effectively” against COVID and flu.
The letter said such “dangerous and deceitful statements and actions” contributed to the harassment and violence experienced by CDC employees.
Dr. Shiv Prasad, a scientific review officer at the National Institutes of Health who signed the letter, said he felt compelled to do so for many reasons.
“Like my colleagues at the CDC, I am concerned about several things,” Prasad, speaking in his personal capacity and not on behalf of NIH or HHS, told ABC News. “One is the misinformation that’s being spread, especially concerning vaccines and COVID-19 and it has a way of vilifying federal workers who are working every day to ensure the health of Americans.”
He went on, “I’m concerned about the safety of HHS workers … I think we are all potential targets now.”
The letter called on Kennedy to take a number of actions by Sept. 2, including not spreading inaccurate health information, affirming the scientific integrity of the CDC and guaranteeing the safety of the HHS workforce.
Prasad added that he would also like to see action from Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the director of NIH. Bhattacharya recently supported Kennedy’s decision to cancel $500 million in federal funding for mRNA vaccine development, saying the decision was made because “the mRNA platform is no longer viable.”
Prasad said he and his colleagues would like Bhattacharya “to consider the effect of his words, potential effect on NIH staff, because he has made some comments in the past about the origins of COVID-19 and certainly recently with the NIH moving away from mRNA vaccine technology.”
“These things are not accepted by the field and, again it’s misinformation, and it could lead to it could put us at risk,” he continued.
ABC News’ Cheyenne Haslett contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Insomnia is a common sleep disorder that makes it hard to fall asleep, stay asleep or get restful sleep. It affects nearly 15% of American adults each month, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The American Academy of Sleep Medicine says the generally recommended insomnia treatments include medications, psychological therapy and behavioral modification. Until now, there was insufficient evidence to suggest that exercise and other healthy lifestyle habits might benefit sleep, according to researchers.
In a new review published in the BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine journal, researchers analyzed 22 previously published studies involving over 1,300 patients, confirming that cognitive-based therapy — which focuses on helping people change unhelpful thoughts and habits– is the gold standard for insomnia treatment. But it also found that yoga, tai chi and walking or jogging and other gentle approaches to exercise are effective as well.
“Insomnia can impact everyday life and increase the risk of cardiovascular diseases [like heart disease and stroke] and Alzheimer’s… and exercise is nature’s sleeping pill,” Dr. Zhijun Bu, the lead author of the study and master student at Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, told ABC News.
Researchers also found cognitive behavioral therapy, tai chi, yoga or a mix of aerobic activities like walking, jogging and cycling all improve sleep, including total sleep time and how long it takes to fall asleep. All of these activities also helped people slumber more soundly and wake up less often during the night.
In some instances, exercise may be even more helpful than therapy, the researchers say.
Yoga improved the total sleep time by nearly two hours, and a combination of cardiovascular activities helped people nod off almost 30 minutes faster, the new research says.
Bu recommended people who live with insomnia try a bunch of different exercise activities to see which one works best for them. For someone who doesn’t sleep enough or who has trouble getting to sleep and staying asleep, yoga and tai chi may do the trick, he said. For those who are still fatigued throughout the day due to lack of sleep, walking or jogging may be a better option, he added.
The benefits from tai chi and cognitive-based therapy persisted for up to two years, the study found. The benefits of aerobic activity paired on its own or paired with strength exercises, lasted up to seven months.
Previous studies have shown that moderate intensity exercise, like brisk walking or jogging done regularly and for a steady duration, may lead to better sleep, but high intensity exercise like sprinting and heavy lifting may not.
Since gentle workouts like yoga, tai chi and walking have minimal side effects and most people can do them easily, Bu contends they are good choices to help combat insomnia.
“Our research shows people of all ages and genders can observe the sleep benefits of exercise,” Bu added. “We hope our findings can lead to further changes within public health.”
Dr. Allen Chang is a Geriatric Medicine subspecialist at Dalhousie University and a member of the ABC News Medical Unit.
(NEW YORK) — Measles cases in the United States have reached their highest number in more than 30 years, according to new federal data published Wednesday.
There have been 1,288 confirmed measles cases across 38 states nationwide, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). By comparison, the U.S. recorded 285 cases all of last year, CDC data showed.
This marks the highest number of cases since 1992. The previous high occurred in 2019 when the U.S. reported 1,274 cases.
The states with confirmed cases include: Alaska, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wyoming.
Among the nationally confirmed cases, the CDC said 92% are among people who are unvaccinated or whose vaccination status is unknown.
Meanwhile, 4% of cases are among those who have received just one dose of the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine and 4% of cases are among those who received the required two doses, according to the CDC.
According to the CDC, there have been at least 27 outbreaks this year, accounting for 88% of confirmed cases. By comparison, 16 outbreaks were recorded in 2024.
Texas experienced a large outbreak this year, with 753 cases reported since January. The rate of spread has slowed in recent weeks, with few cases reported.
At least two school-aged children have died. Both were unvaccinated and had no known underlying conditions, according to Texas health officials.
A third measles death was recorded in New Mexico among an unvaccinated adult who tested positive after dying, according to the New Mexico Department of Health.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
In this April 24, 2024, file photo, a group of doctors join abortion rights supporters at a rally outside the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. The Supreme Court hears oral arguments today on Moyle v. United States and Idaho v. United States to decide if Idaho emergency rooms can provide abortions to pregnant women during an emergency using a federal law known as the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act to supersede a state law that criminalizes most abortions in Idaho. Andrew Harnik/Getty
(IDAHO) — More than six months after Idaho’s near-total abortion ban went into effect, a small town nestled in the state’s northern mountain ranges lost its labor and delivery service — and access to such care could now be imperiled further by looming Medicaid cuts.
Bonner General Health, located in Sandpoint, Idaho, announced in March 2023 that it would no longer provide obstetrical care, citing the state’s “legal and political climate” as one of the factors that drove the decision. Abortions in Idaho are illegal except in the cases of rape, incest and the life of the mother.
The hospital in the city of around 10,000 people was one of three health systems in Idaho to shutter their labor and delivery services in recent years. The state has lost over a third of its OB-GYNs — 94 of 268 — since the ban was enacted in 2022, according to a new study in medical journal JAMA Network Open.
Local health care providers and advocates ABC News spoke with said that Medicaid cuts could put additional labor and delivery services at risk of closing — adding further pressure to Idaho’s already strained maternal and reproductive health care system.
More than 350,000 of the state’s residents are insured by Medicaid, including those covered by the expansion plan voters approved through a ballot measure in 2018. Idaho was already seeking federal approval to institute its own work requirements after Gov. Brad Little signed a Medicaid cost bill this spring.
Under the federal changes, the state could lose $3 billion in funding over the next decade and 37,000 residents could lose coverage, according to analysis by KFF.
“We are living with the consequences of when you criminalize practicing medicine, you lose doctors, and I think that, coupled with these cuts at the federal level, are going to prove devastating for Idaho’s already precarious rural health system,” Melanie Folwell, the executive director of Idahoans United for Women and Families, the group spearheading a ballot initiative to restore abortion rights, told ABC News.
After Bonner General closed its obstetric services, Kootenai Health, located an hour south, inherited its patients, which included residents across the northern tip of the state. Some women now have to drive two to three hours to get prenatal care or to deliver at Kootenai, according to one of its OB-GYNs, Dr. Brenna McCrummen.
Traveling that far for care, especially in cases of complications, can endanger women and infants, McCrummen noted.
“There have been patients that have delivered on the side of the road because they’re not able to get to the hospital in time. There have been babies that have gone to the NICU who didn’t do as well as they probably would have had they not had to travel long distances,” she told ABC News.
The loss of OB-GYNs in the state has hit rural areas like those in the north especially hard, the JAMA Network Open study noted. A vast majority of the remaining physicians providing obstetric care are concentrated in Idaho’s seven most populated counties, leaving only 23 OB-GYNs to serve a population of over half a million across the rest of the state, according to the study.
Those giving birth aren’t the only ones affected by the shortage of physicians. OB-GYNs like McCrummen have packed schedules, leading to long wait times for other reproductive care. Patients seeking annual exams, for instance, often have to book five months in advance, McCrummen explained. These exams provide vital preventive health services, such as screenings for cervical and breast cancer.
Across the U.S., more than 35% of counties are maternity care deserts — areas that lack obstetrics clinicians — according to Dr. Michael Warren, the chief medical and health officer of the March of Dimes, a nonprofit focused on maternal and infant health.
Reductions to Medicaid funding could exacerbate the problem, Warren told ABC News.
“The worry is that as these changes are happening in the Medicaid space, it’s going to be harder, particularly for rural hospitals, to maintain those obstetric services, and if they discontinue those, we’ve got more maternity care deserts, and we’ve got a greater risk of both moms and babies having worse outcomes,” Warren said.
The Medicaid cuts were passed into law in July as part of President Donald Trump’s massive tax and policy bill. Idaho Sen. Mike Crapo, a Republican who serves as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, defended the bill in a press release earlier this month, saying that “targeting waste, fraud and abuse in the program ensures that it stays financially viable for the populations who need it most.” Crapo has also argued that the legislation’s $50 billion rural hospital fund is the “largest investment in decades in rural health care.”
In Idaho, Medicaid covers around a third of births, according to data from March of Dimes. Even before cuts to coverage, labor and delivery units were difficult to keep open, Toni Lawson, a vice president of the Idaho Hospital Association, told ABC News.
Lawson explained that such units require “special equipment” and “specially trained staff” on call, which is expensive to maintain — especially in rural areas with lower birth volumes and where Medicaid reimburses less than cost. Additionally, she said, hospitals have had difficulty recruiting and retaining qualified OB-GYNs amidst Idaho’s abortion restrictions.
As a result, looming reductions to Medicaid funding could push these healthcare systems over the edge, according to Lawson.
“What you’ll see in Idaho, before you see hospitals close, is we’ll have more closures of labor and delivery services,” she said.
These cuts could also worsen outcomes for the women who lose coverage, physician assistant specialist Amy Klingler explained.
“If patients don’t have access to insurance and they don’t have access to Medicaid, sometimes they delay prenatal care, we don’t catch complications early enough, and it puts the baby and the mother’s lives at risk,” Klingler, who works in a small mountain town in central Idaho, told ABC News.
The two problems can compound — Klingler noted that the risk of not catching complications early on is heightened when the same women also have to travel further to receive care.
While she is able to provide prenatal care to her patients, the closest hospital that can deliver babies is a 60-mile drive from her clinic — a route she says that lacks cell service for 45 miles.
“So in the best circumstances, it takes planning and forethought. And then when things are serious and complicated, it’s much more dangerous,” Klingler said.
“Complicated pregnancies in Idaho are the scary ones right now,” she added.
In cases when the mother’s health becomes at risk, health providers say that the state’s abortion ban limits the emergency care they are able to provide. A state court issued a ruling in April slightly expanding the medical exception to the ban in response to a lawsuit filed by the Center for Reproductive Rights, but advocates still argue the existing law constricts physicians’ ability to supply adequate care.
The organization Idahoans United for Women and Families is currently gathering signatures to get a measure on the ballot in 2026 to return the state to the standard of abortion access it had before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.
However, Lawson said “there is no silver bullet” to solve depleted access to maternal and reproductive care.
“It is going to have to be a combination of things and certainly removing barriers to recruitment is an important part of that,” she said, adding that the state must also address rural hospitals’ precarious financial position amid the projected loss of Medicaid funding.
Breana Lipscomb, the senior manager of maternal health and rights at advocacy group the Center for Reproductive Rights, noted that all of these factors are “working in tandem” to restrict access.
“It’s making health care even further out of reach for people, and this is particularly concerning for Black people, for people living in rural areas, for low income folks and for people with capacity to birth,” Lipscomb said.
“I am really afraid of what we might see,” she added.
