BERLIN (AP) — The German government has sharply rejected accusations by U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claiming that it has been sidelining patient autonomy, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The statements made by the US Secretary of Health are completely unfounded, factually incorrect, and must be rejected,” German Health Minister Nina Warken said in a statement late Saturday.

Kennedy said in a video post earlier on Saturday that he had sent the German minister a letter based on reports coming out of Germany that the government was “limiting people’s abilities to act on their own convictions when they face medical decisions.”

The American health secretary said that “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.”

Warken rejected Kennedy’s claims, saying that “during the coronavirus pandemic, there was never any obligation on the medical profession to administer COVID-19 vaccinations. Anyone who did not want to offer vaccinations for medical, ethical, or personal reasons was not liable to prosecution, nor did they have to fear sanctions.”

Kennedy did not give provide specific examples or say which reports he was referring to but added that “in my letter, I explained that Germany is targeting physicians who put their patients first and punishing citizens for making their own medical choices.”

He concluded that “the German government is now violating the sacred patient physician relationship, replacing it is a dangerous system that makes physicians enforcers of state policies.”

Kennedy said that in his letter he made clear that “Germany has the opportunity and the responsibility to correct this trajectory, to restore medical autonomy, to end politically motivated prosecutions.”

Warken pointed out that there were no professional bans or fines for not getting vaccinated.

“Criminal prosecution was only pursued in cases of fraud and document forgery, such as the issuance of false vaccination certificates or fake mask certificates,” the minister said.

She also clarified that in general in Germany “patients are also free to decide which therapy they wish to undergo.”

Former German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach, who was in charge during the pandemic, also replied, addressing Kennedy directly on X saying that he “should take care of health problems in his own country. Short life expectancy, extreme costs, tens of thousands of drug deaths and murder victims.”

“In Germany, doctors are not punished by the government for issuing false medical certificates. In our country, the courts are independent,” Lauterbach wrote.

While a majority of Germans were eager to get vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus during the pandemic, there were also protests by a small minority of vaccine skeptics in Germany which were sometimes supported by far-right movements.