mRNA vaccines may fight cancer

 

Only if they stop gutting research and scientific agencies.

The Food and Drug Administration’s top vaccine official has been pushed out, according to people familiar with the matter.

Dr. Peter Marks, who played a key role in the first Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed to develop Covid-19 vaccines, stepped down Friday. He submitted his resignation after a Health and Human Services official earlier in the day gave him the choice to resign or be fired, people familiar with the matter said.

“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,” Marks wrote in a resignation letter referring to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

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During the pandemic, he was a member of the team that streamlined regulations and pooled government funding to speed development of Covid-19 vaccines.

He had wanted to stay in his position, though his support of immunizations conflicted with Kennedy’s skepticism, people familiar said.

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“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,” he wrote in the letter.

Marks will leave the FDA as Kennedy has begun to reshape the Health and Human Services Department, including by making plans to lay off 10,000 employees and close offices.

  Wall Street Journal

The entire staff of the federal government's Office of Infectious Disease and HIV/AIDS Policy is expected to be laid off, multiple federal health officials told CBS News Friday. The moves are part of a broader restructuring plan ordered by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that involves cutting 20,000 HHS positions.

[...]

However, multiple officials said that written notices of layoffs had not yet been received by HHS employees.

  CBS

UPDATE 09:17 am:

UPDATE 03/31/2025:

Moderna Inc. shares plunged after the resignation of Peter Marks, a top regulator at the US Food and Drug Administration who had long overseen approvals of vaccines and other biological drugs.

Moderna shares fell 13% in trading before US markets opened Monday, while the SPDR S&P Biotech ETF lost 2.3%. Other makers of vaccines and gene therapies also dropped, including Novavax Inc., BioNTech SE and Sarepta Therapeutics Inc.

  Bloomberg