ICYMI: Murray Blasts Trump and Musk Decimating HHS, Risking Americans’ Health and Livelihoods
***FACT SHEET: WA State Impacts of Trump and Musk’s Reckless Mass Layoffs***
Washington DC - U.S. Senators Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee, and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration and Related Agencies, sent a letter Friday to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to express their grave concerns about the recent mass firings of hundreds of federal workers at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Murray and Shaheen’s counterparts in the U.S. House of Representatives—House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D, CT-03) and Congressman Sanford Bishop (D, GA-02)—also signed the letter.
The lawmakers wrote, “The FDA’s mission is to protect public health by assuring the safety, efficacy and security of our human and veterinary drugs, food and cosmetics products and the regulation of tobacco products. We are concerned that the mass firings of probationary staff at the FDA, many of whom with scientific backgrounds, will prevent us from staying on the cutting edge of drug and device approvals, maintaining food safety and responding to new threats, like avian flu.”
“This decision will only hurt the American people by preventing advancements in patient care and is directly in conflict with President Trump’s stated health care goal of, ‘providing more choice, better care, and lower costs,’” continuaron.
El texto completo de la carta se puede encontrar. aquí.
La semana pasada, el senador Murray respondió at length to the Trump administration’s mass firings of dedicated workers across HHS and its many subagencies—and earlier this month she released a fact sheet detailing how reckless mass layoffs across the federal government will jeopardize essential services Americans rely on. Senator Murray was a leading voice in opposition to the confirmation of RFK Jr. as HHS Secretary. Earlier this month on the Senate floor, she warned of the dangers of confirming RFK, Jr.—given his lack of health care experience and deadly rhetoric—and encouraged her colleagues to “show some courage” by rejecting his nomination. A longtime congressional leader on health care and former HELP Committee Chair, she called her meeting with him the “most troubling” she’s ever had with a cabinet nominee.
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