A “rogue” staff member at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services changed the automated phone greeting on one of the agency’s numbers to imitate a pizza shop message after an influx of protest callers flooded its lines.
White Coat Waste Project, a MAGA-friendly group advocating against tax dollars being used for animal testing, recently rallied its supporters to call DHHS and demand it “cut funding for cat testing” at a National Institutes of Health-funded lab at the University of Missouri, according to Mediaite.
The social-media post encouraging the phone campaign specifically named DHHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and included a pair of phone numbers to call.
“RFK Jr holds the ultimate power to cut the funding and save lives,” the post reads. “It’s time to speak up!”
In a follow-up post, the activists described calling the agency and getting a phone response that said: “Thank you for calling Domino’s Pizza.”
Andrew Nixon, DHHS spokesperson, told Politico that the Domino’s voicemail was the result of “an unauthorized action by a rogue employee and not representative of HHS.”
Federal HHS Staffer Changed Agency’s Voicemail to Domino’s Pizza Message After Flood Of Calls From Animal Rights Activists
By Ted Cohen
