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(Hill) – A top Food and Drug Administration vaccine officer has resigned, citing “misinformation” and “a lack of desire for truth and transparency from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. of Health and Human Services (HHS).
According to multiple outlets, Dr. Peter Marks, who headed the FDA’s Center for Biological Evaluation and Research (CBER), resigned on Friday after being given the choice to resign or be fired. The Wall Street Journal was the first to report his resignation.
Marks said he hopes to work “happily” to address Kennedy’s “concerns” about vaccine transparency and safety.
“But it has become clear that truth and transparency are not wanted by the secretary, but rather he wants a subordinate confirmation of his misinformation and lies,” Marks wrote in his resignation letter Friday.
Oka reached out to the FDA for comments.
Marks has been featured in the FDA since 2012. In 2016 he became “CBER Director for the safety of vaccines, allergic products, blood and blood products, and cell, tissue and gene therapy.”
With a graduate degree in cell and molecular biology from New York University and a medical degree, Marks helped to support approval of the first vaccine against Covid-19 and played a major role in kickstarting the speed of operation during President Trump’s first term.
Top FDA officials also criticized Kennedy on Friday for “weakening” the vaccine’s confidence against measles as the country faces an outbreak of an airborne viral disease. There are at least 400 confirmed cases in Texas.
“It is irresponsible to undermine trust in a well-established vaccine that meets the FDA’s high standards of quality, safety and efficacy that are implemented for decades, and is harmful to public health, and there is a clear risk to our country’s health, safety and security.”
Since taking the helm of HHS, Kennedy has been working to rebuild its Outlook division and attempting to reject 10,000 workers as part of its restructuring effort, but another 10,000 will be cut through acquisitions and early retirements.
The HHS secretary defended future cuts and told Hill Partners News Net that the agency “is not cutting frontline workers, but is integrating it to reduce managers and make institutions more efficient.”
“My hope is that for the next few years, the unprecedented attacks on scientific truths that have negatively affected our country’s public health, will end and that citizens of our country will fully benefit from the breadth of medical advancement,” Marks said in a two-page letter.
Kennedy said the National Institutes of Health has a department that has been “dedicated” to long-standing Covid research, and the HHS is bringing the agency within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which “specializes in vaccine injuries.”
“These are my priorities and Lyme disease. They are my priorities for Americans,” Kennedy told News Nation host Chris Cuomo. “As more and more people are suffering from these injuries, we are committed to having gold standard science, knowing what the treatment is and making sure we can provide Americans with the best possible treatment.”
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