March 29 (UPI) — Dr. Peter Marks, the top vaccine regulator at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, was forced to resign, citing Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “misinformation and lies” around immunization.
Marks had for the last decade been the director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research and with the agency since 2012. His work included a leading role in Operation Warp Speed, the effort to develop vaccines against COVID-19 in 2020 during the first Trump administration. His last day at the agency will be April 5.
“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 a resignation letter obtained by media outlets, including NPR and The Wall Street Journal.
“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 wrote.
Marks said he had planned to remain with the FDA after President Donald Trump was re-elected in November, as well as after Trump nominated Kennedy to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
“I will stay around as long as I’m considered to be welcome to stay around,” Marks said at the time, according to Endpoints News. “I think it’s very important that people see that there’s constant leadership here — that we are here to work with either side of the aisle.”
In response to Mark’s resignation, an HHS official released a statement that if Marks “does not want to get behind restoring science to its golden standard and promoting radical transparency, then he has no place at FDA under the strong leadership of Secretary Kennedy.”
Public health experts have raised concerns about Kennedy’s views on vaccines, including his doubts on their safety and efficacy.
Since he was confirmed to lead HHS, vaccine advisory committee meetings at both the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have been postponed or canceled.
Previously awarded grants for research on vaccines, including safety and uptake, across HHS — at the CDC, FDA and National Institutes of Health — and also been terminated. Vaccine critic David Geier, has been tapped to conduct a study about vaccines and autism, a link that has long been debunked.
Marks regularly spoke at conferences about finding ways to accelerate the development of innovative therapies, including for rare diseases.
His big concern now is the ongoing measles outbreak in Texas, which has grown to at least 400 cases. There has been a measles vaccine in the United States since 1963. Two deaths have been reported in Texas, including an unvaccinated child.
Kennedy has promoted alternative treatments during the Texas outbreak.
“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 is irresponsible, detrimental to public health, and a clear danger to our nation’s health, safety and security,” Marks wrote in his resignation letter to Sara Brenner, acting commissioner of the FDA.
On Tuesday, Martin Makary, a Johns Hopkins surgeon, was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as FDA commissioner. Makary supported the controversial idea pushing for natural immunity through COVID-19 infection as preferable to vaccine-induced immunity.
“In forcing Peter Marks to resign, RFK Jr. is now the wolf guarding the hen house,” said Dr. Paul Offit told NPR, adding it “a sad day for America’s children.”
Dr. Ashish Jha, the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health who served as President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 response coordinator, noted that “Peter Marks is one of the most brilliant, dedicated scientists and public servants.”
On Thursday, Kennedy said that HHS will cut 10,000 jobs across its health agencies, on top of the roughly 10,000 who took buyouts or have already departed their jobs.
“I leave behind a staff of professionals who are undoubtedly the most devoted to protecting and promoting the public health of any group of people that I have encountered,” Marks wrote.
In the letter, Marks said he hoped “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.”
Marks became best known for getting the first vaccines on the market in December 2020 after Trump launched the wide-reaching Operation Warp Speeto speed development of COVID-19 vaccines in the United States.
At the end of 2020, the virus had killed more than 346,000 people in the United States. Overall, more than 1.2 million people have died since the first COVID-19-linked death was reported in February 2020.
COVID-19 vaccines prevented an estimated 14.4 million deaths during the acute phase of the pandemic between 2021 and 2024, according to the National Center for Biotechnology Information.
In May 2020, Marks was selected to serve as a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force. He worked with Dr. Anthony Fauci, the most visible public official of the fight against COVID-19. Fauciw as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases from 1984 to 2022.
Marks received his graduate degree in cell and molecular biology and his medical degree at New York University, according to a biography on the FDA website.
He joined the attending staff at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston as a clinician-scientist. Marks then worked for several years in the pharmaceutical industry on the clinical development of hematology and oncology products, before joining the FDA in 2012.
