The Secretary of Health, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Vaccine research clashes In the first months of the Trump administration.
On Wednesday, Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo received a letter from Kennedy – that CBS News examined – informing her that her role leading the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Nihs leading to the end. He did not quote a cause beyond his constitutional authority to do so. Last month, in an exclusive interview with CBS News, Marrazzo said she was silent when she and her colleagues pushed those responsible for the NIH appointed by President Trump who questioned the importance of infantile flu vaccines and canceled long -standing clinical trials.
“My dismissal, unfortunately, shows that the leaders of HHS and the National Institutes of Health do not share my commitment to scientific integrity and public health,” Marrazzo wrote in a statement that follows its dismissal. “Congress must act to protect scientific research against those who would first serve political interests.”
Marrazzo has been in his role since August 2023, succeeding Dr Anthony Fauci, who was director of Niaid for almost four decades. She was filed on indefinite leave in March and filed a complaint against the reporters with the American office of special councils in September, alleging illegal reprisals. In a statement, Marrazzo’s lawyer alleged that his dismissal was more “reprisals for his protected denunciation activity”.
Despite the follow -up of a well -established denunciation process by fileing a complaint with the CVMO, the recourse of Marrazzo is far from certain. Mr. Trump drawn the head of the independent agency In February and has since installed its senior Jamieson Greer trade official to lead the agency on an actor basis.
In August, the office launched an ethics survey on Jack SmithThe former special lawyer who charged Mr. Trump before returning to his actions around January 6, 2021, attacking the American Capitol and for having allegedly managed the documents of his first mandate.
The allegations of the complaint of Marrazzo denunciators are focused on Dr. Matthew Memoli, who was acting director of NIH earlier this year before going to post No. 2 of the health agency.
Marrazzo said Memoli had made declarations minimizing the importance of vaccines that closely reflected the views of Kennedy, a long -standing skeptic of the vaccine. In a series of meetings, Memoli argued that “vaccines are not necessary if the populations are healthy” and that the NIH “should not focus on vaccines,” said Marrazzo in his complaint.
Marrazzo told CBS News that it was like “hearing the echo of” vaccine skepticism often promoted by Kennedy. “It was extremely alarming,” said Marrazzo.
An HHS spokesman defended Memoli at CBS News, writing in a press release: “He remains fully aligned with the vaccination priorities of this administration and constantly champion of sciences based on star-starred evidence.”
In June, Kennedy deleted The 17 members of the Vaccination Practices Advisory Committee, which makes vaccine recommendations to Centers for Disease Control. He then sorted their replacements on the hand, and the newly reconstituted panel recently voted to approve a Change of directives For measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox vaccine, recommending that children under 4 get in two separate strokes.
