Washington – The best vaccine official with the Food and Medicines Administration resigned and criticized the nation’s senior health official for allowing “erroneous information and lies” to guide his thinking behind the safety of vaccines.
Dr. Peter Marks sent a letter to the interim commissioner of the FDA Sara Brenner on Friday saying that he would resign and retire before April 5 as director of the Evaluation and Research Center of the Biological Center.
In his letter, which was obtained by Associated Press, Marks said he was “willing to work” to address the concerns expressed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., about vaccine safety. But he concluded that this was not possible.
“It has been clear that truth and transparency do not want the secretary, but wishes the subordinate confirmation of his misinformation and lies,” he wrote.
He Department of Health and Human Services of the United States He did not respond to a request for comments.
Marks was offered the option to resign or be fired by Kennedy, according to a former FDA official familiar with the discussions, who spoke under anonymity because he had no permission to discuss the matter publicly.
Kennedy has a long history of propagation of erroneous antivacuna information, although during the Senate confirmation hearings it seemed to say that he would not undermine vaccines. He promised the president of the Senate Health Committee that it would not change the recommendations of existing vaccines.
Since he became commissioner, Kennedy has promised to analyze the safety of children’s vaccines, despite the decades of evidence that they are safe and have saved millions of lives.
Marks supervised the rapid review and approval of the COVID-19 vaccines and treatments during the pandemic.
Marks is attributed to coin the name and concept for the “Warp speed, the effort under President Donald Trump to quickly manufacture vaccines while they were still being tested for safety and efficiency. The initiative reduced years of the normal development process.
Despite the success of the project, Trump repeatedly lashed out at the FDA for not passing the first covid shots even before. Trump told confidants after his loss of 2020 that he would have been re -elected if the vaccine had been available before the day of the election.
Dr. Paul Offit, an expert in vaccines at the Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia, criticized what he called the “dismissal” of the brands.
“The dismissal of RFK Jr. to Peter Marks because he would not bend a knee to his erroneous information campaign now allows Fox to protect Gallina’s house,” said Offit. “It’s a sad day for the children of the United States.”
The former FDA Commissioner, Dr. Robert Califf, said that the problems raised in Marks’s renunciation letter “should be terrifying for anyone committed to the importance of evidence to guide the patient’s policies and decisions.”
“I hope this intensifies communication throughout the academy, industry and government to reinforce the importance of science and evidence,” he wrote.
The resignation follows Friday’s news that the HHS plans to say goodbye to 10,000 workers and close entire agencies, including those that supervise billions of dollars in funds for addiction services and community health centers throughout the country.
In a publication on social networks on Thursday, Kennedy criticized the department that supervises as an inefficient “expanding bureaucracy.” He also criticized the 82,000 workers in the department for a decrease in the health of Americans.
The resignation is the last blow to the Asedia Health Agency, which has been shaken for weeks for dismissals, retirements and a chaotic process back to the office that left many employees without permanent offices, desks or other supplies. Last month, Jim Jones, FDA Food Commissioner, He resigned, citing “the indiscriminate shot” of almost 90 employees in his division, according to a copy of his renunciation letter obtained by the AP.
Marks, who could not be contacted to comment, also expressed concerns in his letter about “the efforts that are currently advancing for some about the adverse effects of health vaccination are worrisome”, as well as the “assault unprecedented to the scientific truth that has negatively affected public health in our nation.”
He continued detailing the historical benefits of vaccines that date back to George Washington and pointed out the ongoing measles outbreak as proof of what can happen when doubts about science strengthen.
“The current multi -state measles outbreak that is particularly severe in Texas reminds us of what happens when confidence in well established science underlies public health and well -being,” he wrote, “he wrote.
He measles outbreak, What could continue for months, has now extended to Kansas and Ohio after reproving more than 370 in Texas and New Mexico.
If it reaches other communities not vaccinated in the US, as can now be the case in Kansas, the outbreak could endure for a year and threaten the status of the nation for having eliminated the local propagation of the preventable disease by vaccines, they said experts in public health.
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Casey reported from Boston. Perrone reported from Washington, DC
