Peter Marks, MD, PhD, and director of the US Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER), announced his resignation on 28 March. His departure, which is scheduled for 5 April, coincides with a decision by the Trump Administration to downsize the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the FDA’s governing body, by reducing the department’s workforce by 20,000 people. The FDA is expected to lose 3,500 full-time employees. This follows the swearing in on 13 February of Robert F Kennedy Jr as the HHS secretary.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Dr Marks was given a choice to resign or be fired. As head of CBER, he was responsible for the regulation of biologic products including vaccines and played a significant role in the development and approval of vaccines against Covid-19.
More recently, he had raised concerns about an outbreak of measles in Texas and the need to take preventive measures. Mr Kennedy, a vaccine sceptic, reportedly said that the use of a measles vaccine should be voluntary.
In his resignation letter, Dr Marks gives thanks to the FDA’s professionals “who are undoubtedly the most devoted to protecting and promoting the public health of any group of people that I have encountered during my four decades working in the public and private sectors.” But he also takes aim at Kennedy, saying that despite his offer to organise meetings with the public and experts on vaccine safety, the secretary was not interested.
“…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. My hope is that during the coming years, the unprecedented assault on scientific truth that has adversely impacted public health in our nation comes to an end so that the citizens of our country can fully benefit from the breadth of advances in medical science,” Dr Marks wrote.
Dr Marks joined the FDA in 2012 and became CBER director in 2016.
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