The top vaccine regulator in the US has resigned over the anti-vaccine stance of Donald Trump’s health chief.
Dr Peter Marks said Robert F Kennedy Jr’s “misinformation and lies” are “irresponsible, detrimental to public health, and a clear danger to our nation’s health, safety, and security” in his resignation letter.
A person familiar with the matter said Dr Marks was forced out of his position, according to Sky News’ partner newsroom NBC News.
“If Peter Marks does not want to get behind restoring science to its golden standard and promoting radical transparency, then he has no place at FDA under the strong leadership of Secretary Kennedy,” said a spokesperson at the Department of Health and Human Services.
The scientist, who played a key role in authorising the first COVID vaccines in 2020, said that he had been willing to work with the health secretary to address any concerns about vaccine safety and transparency.
“However, it has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the secretary, but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies,” Dr Marks wrote.
He has led the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research since 2016.
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The division assures the safety and effectiveness of medical products, including vaccines.
Secretary Kennedy, an anti-vaccine activist, has been critical of COVID vaccines and filed a citizens’ petition in 2021 requesting that the FDA revoke the authorisation of the vaccines.
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He has called the COVID vaccine the “deadliest vaccine ever made” as well as working to undermine confidence in the measles vaccine amid the largest outbreak the United States has seen since 2019.
Read more: Unvaccinated child dies from measles in first US death since 2015
While he’s said vaccines protect children from measles, he has also said the decision to vaccinate is a “personal” one.
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“The ongoing multistate measles outbreak that is particularly severe in Texas reminds us of what happens when confidence in well-established science underlying public health and well-being is undermined,” Dr Marks wrote in his resignation letter.
“Measles, which killed more than 100,000 unvaccinated children last year in Africa and Asia owing to pneumonitis and encephalitis caused by the virus, had been eliminated from our shores.”
