In the end, it wasn’t possible to work with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s views on vaccinations, the FDA’s top vaccine official said Friday as he chose resignation over termination.
Dr. Peter Marks, director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, told the Food and Drug Administration he would leave by April 5.
“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,” Marks said in a resignation letter obtained by media outlets.
Marks oversaw the FDA’s “Operation Warp Speed” roll-out of COVID-19 vaccines under President Trump’s first term.
He was given the choice of leaving on his own or being fired by Kennedy, head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Trump’s second term, media outlets reported.
Kennedy has promoted anti-vaccine theories for years. In Senate confirmation hearings, he said he wouldn’t change what the FDA currently recommends, but has since pledged to examine childhood vaccines that have been deemed safe and saved millions of lives. He has said vitamin A can treat a measles outbreak in Texas, and has named vaccine skeptic David Geier to help study whether vaccines are connected to autism — a theory that has been discredited.
“This man doesn’t care about the truth. He cares about what is making him followers,” Marks said in an interview with The New York Times.
CNN reported an HHS spokesman’s response: “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.”
Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine expert at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, called the news “a sad day for America’s children,” The Associated Press reported.
“RFK Jr.’s firing of Peter Marks because he wouldn’t bend a knee to his misinformation campaign now allows the fox to guard the hen house,” Offit said, per The Associated Press.
Marks’ resignation followed a Wall Street Journal report that HHS plans to lay off 10,000 employees and close agencies connected to community health centers and addiction services.
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