RFK Jr. leadership style, growing measles outbreak lead to HHS resignation
March 3 (UPI) — A top spokesman in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services abruptly resigned over reports of internal clashing over the management by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and escalating health emergencies.
“I want to announce to my friends and colleagues that last Friday I announced my resignation effective immediately,” Thomas Corry, who served as U.S. assistant secretary of public affairs at HHS, announced Monday via LinkedIn.
The quick exit was prompted due to growing dissent over RFK Jr.’s management style and the influence of his new principal deputy chief of staff, Stefanie Spear, Politico reported. Spear is a longtime Kennedy aide and press secretary during his ill-fated 2024 presidential run in which he bowed out to endorse Trump.
“To my colleagues at HHS, I wish you the best and great success,” Corry said.
He served in the first Trump administration in similar roles at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services as senior adviser and director of communications.
Corry resigned less than two weeks after his appointment.
He wrote last month after he was sworn in again that he was “thankful that I’ll be part of the team that is going to work to make America healthy again, and on making healthcare more affordable and accessible.”
But he reportedly grew uneasy with Kennedy’s hushed response to a growing measles outbreak in Texas which, so far, has infected at least 146 people and saw its first American death from the virus in at least 10 years, according to Politico.
Measles was eliminated in the United States by 2000, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
However, Kennedy, a longtime skeptic of vaccines despite admissions that he kept his own kids vaccinated, said last week in a Cabinet meeting that a measles outbreak is “not unusual.”
That arrived amid a spike in the highly contagious disease in the United States and Canada, primarily among unvaccinated individuals.
On Thursday, New Jersey health officials announced two new measles cases in addition to a known case.
“Parents play a pivotal role in safeguarding their children’s health,” Kennedy wrote Sunday in a Fox News op-ed.
Kennedy said that a measles vaccine is protective to children and others but suggested families consult with a health provider.
“All parents should consult with their healthcare providers to understand their options to get the [measles, mumps, rubella] vaccine,” he continued. “The decision to vaccinate is a personal one.”
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