Hi, friend – Patty Murray here.

The people of Washington state sent me here to keep them and their families safe, and I take this obligation very seriously.

That's why I’m reaching out with an update on the state of our nation's health: because so far, Donald Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr.'s "Make America Healthy Again" (MAHA) agenda has been about as good for public health as a cough to the face. And now TODAY, they’re submitting their big official report to Trump, but they aren’t sharing it with the rest of the public.

He's fired:

The entire CDC advisory board that recommends vaccines,
Scientists who monitor bird flu,
Food safety inspectors,
First-rate cancer specialists, researchers, and staff at the NIH,
The ENTIRE staff of a program that helps more than 6 million low-income people nationwide – including 80,000 Washington state households – afford A/C amid deadly heatwaves and heating in the dead of winter,
And nearly 90% of the CDC’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

He's also illegally blocking or freezing tens of billions of congressionally approved dollars, and he requested hundreds of billions in budget cuts for the very agencies he oversees. He’s wreaking havoc across government:

At the NIH,
State and local health departments,
For improvements to women's health care, including cancer screenings, birth control, and preventive care,
And even resources that I passed through the bipartisan SUPPORT Act to bolster local substance use and mental health programs.

And I'd be remiss not to mention how RFK Jr.'s anti-vaccine, anti-science beliefs – or otherwise, his utter ineptitude – has infected what's left of the entire department under his purview:

From suggesting that annual measles outbreaks are perfectly normal in the 21st century – after burying a CDC report that emphasized the need for vaccines to stop the deadly disease's spread,
To releasing the first iteration of his long-awaited "Make America Healthy Again" report, which was rife with faulty, misquoted, and in some cases, entirely FAKE citations.
And, of course, his recent decision to terminate $500 million in federal investments to advance lifesaving and groundbreaking mRNA research for no reason other than baseless conspiracy theories.

He has set us back by decades for no good reason, but he’s also repeatedly demonstrated his unfitness to serve as one of the world's most powerful health officials.

For example, ahead of our Congressional hearings on the President’s budget request, he was required to send us a plan detailing how the agency was currently spending federal funding for programs working families rely on.

Congress writes the bills to decide how we invest taxpayer dollars each year, so we need to know how any administration is currently spending your money.

Instead of spelling it all out, he sent us a special copy titled "Hill Version," which had more than 530 asterisks in place of funding levels.

He gave no clear idea of how he was spending taxpayer dollars, or what programs he'd already cut and eliminated – and at that hearing, when I asked questions like "How many NIH clinical staff have been fired?" – he had no answer.

The work HHS does – or in this case, stops doing – is not some political game. It has life and death consequences. And under the leadership of Secretary Brainworms, America is now LESS healthy and LESS safe than at any other time in recent memory.

Worst of all: thanks to Republicans' Big, Ugly Bill being passed into law, more than 15 million working class Americans, kids included, will lose coverage to afford health care from actual medical professionals who could fix the mess this out-of-touch, snake oil salesman created. Especially in rural America, it won't matter what kind of coverage you have if your local hospital closes because they couldn't keep the lights on without Medicaid reimbursements.

So I will keep sounding the alarm about Trump, RFK Jr., and the entire Republican Party's attacks on science and health care just to fund tax breaks for billionaires.

And when diseases spread, more kids get sick, and providers don't have the resources to heal them, I will make sure everyone knows that any backslide in public health is the direct result of their reckless actions.

Friend, I hope you’ll stay with me in this fight to hold the administration accountable, whether by calling my office or your representatives, volunteering in your community, or chipping in $5 or any amount to help me keep up this fight.

Thank you for reading, and for all that you do.

Patty Murray