Ex FDA Official Claims Forced Exit Over Vaccine Safety Data

Dr. Peter Marks, the agency's former vaccine chief, refused to grant Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s team unrestricted access to a vaccine safety database, fearing that the information might be manipulated or even deleted.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Shortly before he was forced to resign, the nation’s top vaccine regulator says he refused to grant Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s team unrestricted access to a tightly held vaccine safety database, fearing that the information might be manipulated or even deleted.

In an interview with The Associated Press, former Food and Drug Administration vaccine chief Dr. Peter Marks discussed his efforts to “make nice” with Kennedy and address his longstanding concerns about vaccine safety, including by developing a “vaccine transparency action plan.”

Marks agreed to give Kennedy’s associates the ability to read thousands of reports of potential vaccine-related issues sent to the government’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS. But he would not allow them to directly edit the data.

“Why wouldn’t we? Because frankly we don’t trust (them),” he said, using a profanity. “They’d write over it or erase the whole database.”

Marks spoke to the AP on Sunday, after officials in Texas confirmed the nation’s second measles-related death in an unvaccinated child this year. Marks attributed the death to the tepid response from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which again encouraged the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine on Sunday but has also promoted claims about vitamin A supplements.