US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr on Saturday blasted Germany, claiming that thousands of doctors in the country are facing legal action for issuing vaccine and mask exemptions during the coronavirus pandemic.
“I’ve learned that more than a thousand German physicians, and thousands of their patients, now face prosecution and punishment for issuing exemptions from wearing masks or getting Covid-19 vaccines during the pandemic,” Kennedy said in a video posted on X.
He accused Germany of “sidelining patient autonomy,” saying he had written a letter to German Health Minister Nina Warken asking her “to restore medical autonomy” and “end politically motivated prosecutions.”
In the post, Kennedy misspelled the minister’s name as “Workin.”
It was not immediately clear which legal cases Kennedy was referring to, and he did not cite a source for the figures he mentioned.
Warken swiftly rejected the accusations, describing them as completely unfounded and factually incorrect.
“Doctors decide independently and autonomously on the treatment of patients,” the minister stressed, adding that “patients are also free to decide which treatment they wish to receive.”
During the coronavirus pandemic, Germany introduced a number of measures aimed at curbing the spread of the virus, including wearing masks indoors in public places and on public transport.
This was later replaced by proof of vaccination in many places, however getting a Covid-19 vaccine was never mandatory.
Numerous people have been prosecuted over accusations of faking vaccination documents or medical certificates to be exempted from wearing a face mask, but no physician has faced legal action for refusing to administer vaccines, Warken said.
Kennedy, a nephew of late US president John F Kennedy, is a known vaccine sceptic, who has repeatedly been accused of spreading vaccine misinformation and often promotes the debunked claim that vaccines cause autism.
Kennedy accused the German government of “violating the sacred patient-physician relationship, replacing it with a dangerous system that makes physicians enforcers of state policies.”
“When any government criminalizes doctors for advising their patients, it crosses a line that free societies have always treated as sacred,” he said in the video.
Former health minister hits back
Former German health minister Karl Lauterbach also fiercely rejected Kennedy’s criticism, pointing instead to problems within the US health care system.
“Honourable Secretary Kennedy should focus on health problems in his own country: low life expectancy, extreme costs, tens of thousands of drug-related deaths and murder victims,” he wrote on X.
“In Germany, doctors are not punished by the government for issuing false medical certificates. Our courts are independent.”
Lauterbach, a member of the centre-left Social Democrats, served as health minister from December 2021 to May 2025.
Source: dpa
