Measles outbreaks on the horizon if US cuts funding, WHO director says
WHO Director says the progress measles vaccines have made to save millions of lives is now in jeopardy if U.S. pulls funding.
WASHINGTON – Dr. Peter Marks, the top vaccine official at the Food and Drug Administration, wrote in a letter on Friday that he was resigning from his position and criticized Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has questioned the effectiveness of vaccines for years and promoted debunked claims that certain vaccines are linked to autism.
In the letter addressed to Acting FDA Commissioner Sara Brenner, Marks said he would resign and retire as Director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research effective April 5, according to a copy obtained by The Washington Post and The New York Times. The center is responsible for examining the safety and effectiveness of biological products such as vaccines.
“As you are aware, I was willing to work to address the Secretary’s concerns regarding vaccine safety and transparency by hearing from the public and implementing a variety of different public meetings and engagements with the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine,” Marks wrote in the letter.
“However, 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,” he added.
Marks added that “undermining confidence in well-established vaccines” is “irresponsible, detrimental to public health, and a clear danger to our nation’s health, safety(,) and security.”
Marks joined the Food and Drug Administration in 2012 as deputy center director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, and later became the director in 2016, according to his webpage. He was instrumental in carrying out Operation Warp Speed under the first Trump administration, which was a federal effort to speed up the development of COVID-19 vaccines.
Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that Marks “is one of the most brilliant, dedicated scientists and public servants.” Jha served as the White House COVID-19 response coordinator under the former Biden administration.
“He helped usher in scientific rigor and transparency into the FDA. And tonight, he is being pushed out,” Jha wrote on Friday. “Making the FDA dramatically weaker, less effective. This is not how we make America healthy.”