Dr. Peter Marks, a top Food and Drug Administration vaccine official, suddenly resigned Friday, saying that health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s aggressive vaccine stance was irresponsible and poses a risk to the public.
“It became clear that truth and transparency were not wanted by the secretary, but rather wanted a subordinate confirmation of his misinformation and lies,” Dr. Marks wrote to the agency's representative, Sarah Brenner.
Dr. Marks resigned under pressure, according to someone familiar with the matter that a Department of Health and Human Services official said he could resign or be fired Friday.
Hours ago in West Virginia, Kennedy argued that Covid wasn't killing healthy people, contrary to research showing that 30% of people who died early in the pandemic have no underlying conditions. Kennedy also praises the value of vitamin A as a treatment during the major measles outbreak in Texas, while underestimating the value of the vaccine. On Thursday, he announced that he is creating a new office to study vaccine injuries.
In his letter, Dr. Marks said it collapsed, saying that it “killed more than 100,000 unvaccinated children in Africa and Asia last year.”
He added that he was willing to address Kennedy's concerns about vaccine safety and transparency by working with a series of public meetings and national academics in science, engineering and medicine, but was rejected.
“It is irresponsible to undermine trust in a well-established vaccine that meets the FDA's high standards of quality, safety and efficacy that are implemented for decades, and is harmful to public health and a clear risk to our country's health, safety and security,” wrote Dr. Marks.
He went on to express his desire to limit the damages of the current administration.
“My hope is that for the next few years, the unprecedented attacks on scientific truths that have negatively affected our country's public health, will end and that citizens of our country will fully benefit from the breadth of medical advancement,” writes Dr. Marks.
Dr. Marks did not respond to requests for comment. HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon issued a statement Friday night saying, “If Peter Marks doesn't want to restore science to golden standards and promote radical transparency, then under the strong leadership of Secretary Kennedy, the FDA has no place to go.”
Dr. Marks piloted the FDA's vaccine program during the tumultuous year of the coronavirus pandemic and led the agency and its external advisors on the kind of evidence needed to grant emergency permits for vaccines produced under the Trump administration's operational speed initiative.
In June 2022, he appealed to a committee of external experts to consider the dangers the virus poses to children under the age of five. The panel voted later that day to recommend the vaccine for that age group.
“We need to be careful not to get paralyzed by the number of pediatric deaths due to the overwhelming number of deaths here,” Dr. Marks said at the time.
Dr. Peter Hotes, a Vaccine Expert at Baylor University, said he spoke regularly with Dr. Marks during the pandemic. “He was very committed to using science to help the American people,” he said. “He was one of the heroes of the pandemic, so sorry to see him go.”
Former FDA affiliate Dr. Peter Lurie called it “real tragedy” when someone like Dr. Marks violated “these suspected distortions.”
“He's very concerned about the integrity of scientific companies,” Dr. Lurie said.
Kennedy was confirmed by the Senate after a tense two-day hearing, including his repeated pledge to protect the importance of vaccinations. However, he is already beginning to show signs that he is continuing the type of activity he has been involved in for 20 years to deeply undermine trust in the vaccine.
During the outbreak of measles in Texas, he promoted the value of alternative medicines and issued wet advice to help people get vaccinated. Despite the federal employment freeze, his agency recently hired prominent researchers in the anti-vaccine movement to study the long, discriminated link between vaccines and autism.
And on Thursday, Kennedy told News Nation that he plans to establish a vaccine injury agency within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He said the effort was a priority for him and would help bring “the science of gold standard” to the federal government.
Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, said research into vaccine injuries has been a priority for decades. “I'm afraid this is a way to highlight vaccine damage in a way that is completely disproportionate to what the actual risk is,” he said.
