U.S. Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-Maryland) called on Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to resign as Secretary of Health and Human Services at her “SICK OF IT” rally on Saturday.
Her office estimated over 250 Marylanders attended the event at the Medical Center Metro Station in Bethesda, at which she promised to file a Senate resolution to that effect.
“As of this Monday, I will be filing a Senate resolution and I am calling on Secretary Kennedy to resign,” Alsobrooks said. “He must go. He ought to be fired.”
The resolution of “no confidence” is a 15-page document obtained by The Baltimore Sun listing the details of Kennedy’s failures in leadership of HHS since he has taken charge. Budget cuts and firings have crippled health organizations and research facilities based in Maryland like National Institutes of Health and Johns Hopkins University.
During his confirmation hearings, Alsobrooks’ questioning elicited Kennedy’s racist and scientifically unsound assertion that Black people should be on a different vaccine schedule than white people. Since being confirmed, he has taken the agency down the path of debunked and disproven science, hunting for the root cause of autism in ways and for reasons that are fallacious, dangerous, and medically disproven — for example, insisting vaccines cause autism and describing autism as “a preventable disease.”
More recently, Kennedy used his platform to make patently false claims about the kinds of lives people with autism were capable of leading, generalizations that prompted massive public outcry and pushback.
In March 2025, Maryland reported 3 cases of measles, one of them in Howard County, two in Prince George’s County, and all three stemming from international travel. Nationwide, 800 cases had been reported by mid-April 2025, the second highest annual case count in 25 years, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC.)
“82% were associated with an ongoing outbreak in close-knit communities with low vaccination coverage in New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas. Eighty-five (11%) patients were hospitalized, and three have died,” read the CDC website.
“I’m sick of the lies,” said Dr. Ian Morgan, of the NIH. “I’m sick of not being able to do my work. Sick of the constant attacks – just last week, the Administration released a budget announcing 40% cuts to the NIH. But we will not give up. The NIH saves lives.”
“America is exceptional because of our research,” Alsobrooks told the crowd on Saturday, holding her resolution above her head. “America is exceptional because of science. And we demand that we continue to lead the world.”
Alsobrooks is on the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, among others.
This is not the first time that Maryland leaders have criticized Kennedy. In October 2023, four of Kennedy’s own siblings — including former Maryland Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend — denounced their brother’s decision to run as an Independent candidate for president.
