New FDA commissioner signed off on vaccine chief's ouster: Reports
Newly sworn-in Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Marty Makary signed off on the plan to push out the agency’s top vaccine official, Peter Marks, in one of his first acts as chief, according to multiple reports.
Marks, who led the FDA’s vaccine division for more than eight years, resigned on Friday as director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER). Earlier that day, according to multiple outlets, Marks was given the choice either to resign or to be terminated.
Makary was briefed on the plan to oust Marks from his longtime post shortly after he was quietly sworn in to the post on Friday, Pink Sheet first reported.
Politico reported that Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “made the final call” to oust Marks from his post at FDA, but that Makary first agreed to the decision. HHS houses numerous government agencies, including the FDA.
In his resignation letter, Marks took aim at Kennedy for “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.”
Doing so “is irresponsible, detrimental to public health, and a clear danger to our nation’s health, safety, and security,” Marks wrote in his resignation letter that was addressed to acting FDA Commissioner Sara Brenner.
Marks also said in the letter that he was “willing” to work with Kennedy to address his “concerns” about vaccine transparency and safety, but he added, “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 had been at the FDA since 2012. In 2016, he became the director of CBER, the center responsible for the safety of “vaccines, allergenic products, blood and blood products, and cellular, tissue and gene therapies.”
Marks, who got his graduate degree in cell and molecular biology and his medical degree at New York University, was instrumental in helping authorize the first vaccines against COVID-19 and played a major role in kick-starting Operation Warp Speed during President Trump’s first term.
The Hill has reached out to FDA and HHS for comment.