Ousted FDA vaccine director calls Kennedy's start 'very scary'
Peter Marks, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) official pressured to resign over his disagreements with Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., warned in an interview published Friday that Kennedy's tenure at the HHS has been "very scary" so far.
Marks announced his resignation toward the end of March, reportedly having been given the choice to be fired or resign. In his resignation letter, Marks said he had been "willing” to work to address Kennedy’s "concerns" about vaccine transparency and safety but determined Kennedy only wanted "subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies."
Speaking to The Wall Street Journal, Marks said he could not follow someone who would not follow the science.
“I can never give allegiance to anyone else other than to follow the science as we see it,” Marks told the Journal. “That does not mean that I can just roll over and take conspiracy theories and justify them.”
At the FDA, Marks led the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research for nearly 10 years. This role tasked Marks with ensuring the safety and efficacy of biological products such as vaccines, and he was a key part of Operation Warp Speed, the project to fast-track a COVID-19 vaccine.
Marks recounted that Kennedy's team requested data on cases of brain swelling and deaths caused by the measles, mumps and rubella vaccines. But Marks said he did not turn over this data as no confirmed cases exist in the U.S. Based on this exchange, Marks told the Journal he concluded that Kennedy's HHS did not appreciate someone who was "rigorously science-driven."
He also alleged that Kennedy's team wanted to weaken regulation of unproven stem-cell treatments, calling these endeavors "potentially dangerous" as the stem cells could "harm people."
Speaking to the Journal, Marks expressed dismay over what he perceives to be actions that will result in the U.S. losing its global lead in developing new treatments for diseases.
“They broke something without real plans to fix it, because the people who were doing the breaking didn’t have any idea,” Marks said. “They took the place apart without having an instruction manual of how to put it back together.”