 "Dr. Peter Marks, then-director of the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, testifies on Capitol Hill, on May 11, 2021. File Image: AP")
Dr Peter Marks, a top vaccine official from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), abruptly resigned on Friday accusing the US Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr of spreading “misinformation and lies”. In a searing resignation letter, Dr Marks said the newly appointed health secretary’s aggressive stance against vaccines was “irresponsible” and poses greater danger to general public.
“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 in a letter to Sara Brenner, the agency’s acting commissioner, The New York Times reported.
A source close to the matter told NYT that Dr Marks resigned under pressure. The source from the Department of Health and Human Services said that Dr Marks was told to either resign or get fired. The resignation letter came just hours after Kennedy said in West Virginia that Covid did not kill healthy people, which was in contradiction to multiple research showing 30 per cent of those who died early in the pandemic did not have underlying conditions.
He also spoke about the value of vitamin A during a major measles outbreak in Texas, while downplaying the value of vaccines. Not only this but on Thursday, Kennedy announced that he was creating a new office to study vaccine injuries.
‘Undermining confidence in the vaccine is irresponsible’: Dr Marks
In his letter, Dr Marks mentioned that measles, “which killed more than 100,000 unvaccinated children last year in Africa and Asia,” because of complications, “had been eliminated from our shores." He stated that he had been willing to address Kennedy’s concerns about vaccine safety and transparency.
“Undermining confidence in well-established vaccines that have met the high standards for quality, safety and effectiveness that have been in place for decades at FDA is irresponsible, detrimental to public health, and a clear danger to our nation’s health, safety and security,” Dr Marks wrote.
He went on to express his hopes that the current administration’s damage will remain limited. “My hope is that during the coming years, the unprecedented assault on scientific truth that has adversely impacted public health in our nation comes to an end so that the citizens of our country can fully benefit from the breadth of advances in medical science,” he furthered.
After the news of Dr Marks’s resignation started to stir headlines, a spokesperson for the HHS stated on Friday night. “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 F.D.A. under the strong leadership of Secretary Kennedy," the representative wrote in the statement.
Dr Marks led the FDA’s vaccine program during the tumultuous years of the coronavirus pandemic, guiding the agency and its outside advisers through multiple decisions about the kind of evidence that was necessary to grant emergency authorization for the vaccines produced under the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed initiative.
On Thursday, Kennedy told NewsNation that he plans to create a vaccine injury agency within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He argued that the effort was a priority for him and would help bring “gold-standard science” to the federal government.
With inputs from agencies.