FDA vaccine chief to leave the agency for a second time

The Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine chief, Dr. Vinay Prasad, will depart the agency next month, an FDA spokesperson said.

The Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine chief, Dr. Vinay Prasad, will depart the agency next month, an FDA spokesperson said Friday.

Prasad was appointed last year as director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, a position with heavy influence over the regulation of vaccines and other medical products. But his tenure has been dogged by controversy.

Prasad briefly stepped down in July, after less than three months on the job, following disputes over the FDA’s decision to pause shipments of a gene therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a neuromuscular disorder. The decision incited backlash from right-wing activist Laura Loomer, who called for Prasad’s ouster. However, he returned to his role roughly two weeks later.

In the ensuing months, Prasad faced criticism over the FDA's delay or rejection of several treatments for rare diseases, including for a rare blood cancer. Prasad had previously pledged to create new pathways to accelerate drug approvals.

Then in November, Prasad sent a memo to FDA staff in which he wrote that Covid shots had killed at least 10 children and that “we do not have reliable data” on the vaccines’ benefits in healthy kids. He did not provide evidence, such as documentation of the deaths, to support the claim. Twelve former FDA commissioners subsequently denounced the statements in the New England Journal of Medicine.