RFK Jr. fires NIH vaccine whistleblower Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo

Well being Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has fired a high official with the Nationwide Institutes of Well being who blew the whistle on inner clashes over vaccine analysis within the early months of the Trump administration.

On Wednesday, Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo acquired a letter from Kennedy — which CBS Information reviewed — informing her that her function main NIH’s Nationwide Institute of Allergy and Infectious Ailments, or NIAID, had been terminated. He didn’t cite a trigger past his constitutional authority to take action. Final month, in an unique interview with CBS Information, Marrazzo stated she had been silenced when she and her colleagues pushed again towards NIH officers appointed by President Trump who questioned the significance of childhood flu vaccines and canceled long-running medical trials.  

“My termination, sadly, exhibits that the leaders of HHS and the Nationwide Institutes of Well being don’t share my dedication to scientific integrity and public well being,” Marrazzo wrote in an announcement following her firing. “Congress should act to guard scientific analysis from those that would serve political pursuits first.”

Marrazzo had been in her function since August 2023, succeeding Dr. Anthony Fauci, who had served as NIAID director for practically 4 many years. She was placed on indefinite go away in March and filed a whistleblower criticism with the U.S. Workplace of Particular Counsel in September, alleging unlawful retaliation. In an announcement, Marrazzo’s legal professional alleged her firing is additional “retaliation for her protected whistleblower exercise.”

Regardless of following a well-established whistleblower course of by submitting a criticism with OSC, recourse for Marrazzo is way from sure. Mr. Trump fired the top of the impartial company in February and has since put in his high commerce official Jamieson Greer to guide the company on an appearing foundation. 

In August, the workplace launched an ethics probe into Jack Smith, the previous particular counsel who indicted Mr. Trump earlier than he returned to workplace for his actions across the January 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol, and for allegedly mishandling categorized paperwork from his first time period.

The allegations in Marrazzo’s whistleblower criticism concentrate on Dr. Matthew Memoli, who served as appearing NIH director earlier this yr earlier than transferring to the well being company’s No. 2 put up.

Marrazzo claimed Memoli made statements downplaying the significance of vaccines that carefully mirrored the views of Kennedy, a longtime vaccine skeptic. In a sequence of conferences, Memoli argued that “vaccines are pointless if populations are wholesome,” and that the NIH “mustn’t concentrate on vaccines,” Marrazzo alleged in her criticism.

Marrazzo informed CBS Information it was like “listening to the echo of” the vaccine skepticism typically promoted by Kennedy. “It was extraordinarily alarming,” Marrazzo stated.

An HHS spokesperson defended Memoli to CBS Information, writing in an announcement: “He stays absolutely aligned with this administration’s vaccine priorities and persistently champions gold-standard evidence-based science.” 

In June, Kennedy eliminated all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Vaccine Practices, which makes vaccine suggestions to the Facilities for Illness Management. He then handpicked their replacements, and the newly reconstituted panel just lately voted to endorse splitting the measles, mumps, rubella and varicella vaccine into separate pictures.