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Dr. Peter Marks, the top Food and Drug Administration vaccine regulator, has resigned, a Department of Health and Human Services official said Friday.
“If Peter Marks doesn’t want to restore science to that golden standard and promote radical transparency, he is not in the FDA under Secretary Kennedy’s strong leadership,” said an HHS spokesman.
Those familiar with the issue told NBC News that Marks had been kicked out of his position.
Dr. Peter Marks, then director of the FDA’s Center for Biological Evaluation and Research, testified on May 11, 2021 at Capitol Hill.
In her resignation from FDA Commissioner Sarah Brenner, Marks wrote that eroding confidence in the vaccine is “irresponsible, harmful to public health and a clear danger to our country’s health, safety and security.”
He said he was willing to work with Kennedy to address concerns about vaccine safety and transparency.
“However, 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,” writes Marks.
Mark did not respond to requests for comment.
Marks has headed the FDA’s Center for Biological Evaluation and Research (CBER) since 2016. This department is responsible for ensuring the safety and efficacy of many medical products, including vaccines.
Marks helped lead the country through the Covid pandemic and played a key role in approving the first Covid vaccine in the second half of 2020. He helped launch Operation Warp Speed, the first private partnership of the Trump administration to quickly develop vaccines.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. of Capitol Hill on January 29th.
Anti-vaccine activist Kennedy has been critical of the Covid vaccine and filed a citizen petition in 2021, demanding that the FDA revoke its approval for the vaccine. That same year he called the Covid vaccine described as “the deadliest vaccine ever made.”
Kennedy has also worked to undermine confidence in the measles vaccine among the biggest outbreak the US has seen since 2019. They say the vaccine will protect children from measles, but they say the decision to receive the vaccine is “personal.”
In a recent interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News, Kennedy said the measles Mumps-Rubella vaccine “causing deaths every year.”
According to the American Infectious Diseases Association, there were no deaths related to the MMR vaccine in healthy people. Vaccines are not recommended for people with immunocompromised.
“The ongoing ongoing multi-tier measles outbreak in Texas, particularly serious, reminds us of what happens when confidence in the well-established science underlying public health and well-being is eroding,” Marks wrote in his resignation letter.
“Measles that killed more than 100,000 unvaccinated children last year in Africa and Asia due to pneumonia and encephalitis caused by the virus were excluded from our coast,” he wrote.
This story first appeared on nbcnews.com. More from NBC News:
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