Vinay Prasad named FDA vaccine chief as anti-vaxxers consolidate power

This piece was produced in partnership with Important Context.


The U.S. FDA has appointed a longtime ally of prominent vaccine skeptics as its top vaccine regulator.

In March, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine activist, pushed out the renowned vaccine scientist Peter Marks, who led the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER), the division tasked with overseeing vaccines. Marks’ ouster had the sign-off of newly sworn-in FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, who himself has staked out fringe positions on COVID vaccines.

In a scathing resignation letter, Marks criticized Kennedy, writing that it had “become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the Secretary, but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies.”

Now, the agency is replacing Marks with UCSF epidemiology and biostatistics professor Vinay Prasad, a popular YouTuber who gained right-wing notoriety early in the COVID pandemic for staking out contrarian positions on masking and school closures, and opposing government efforts to control the spread of the virus.

A hematologist and oncologist, Prasad came under fire in October 2021 for suggesting COVID mitigations were the start of a national descent into authoritarianism, invoking comparisons to Nazi Germany. 

“Ironic that someone who compared vaccine requirements to the Holocaust and presented this as evidence of (Anthony) Fauci being a public health fascist is now a loyal bootlicker and apparatchik of actual fascists,” said Angela Rasmussen, virologist and scientific advisor to the Accountability Journalism Institute (AJI).

In his post on X announcing the appointment, Makary said Prasad "brings the kind of scientific rigor, independence, and transparency we need at CBER.”

Speculation about a potential role for Prasad within the administration has been swirling since last year, when his name appeared on Kennedy’s “nominees for the people” website as a potential pick for a leadership position within the new regime.

A longtime ally of Makary and National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya — and booster of Kennedy — Prasad has been a reliable supporter of the Trump administration’s cuts to science funding. His loyalty hasn’t gone unnoticed. 

In February, the White House cited him in a press email attacking The Washington Post over a story it ran about impending cuts to the NIH. In a Substack post, Prasad told his readers, “The majority of science is neither true nor useful.”

In his recent academic work, Prasad has adopted a conciliatory tone where COVID vaccines are concerned. A paper he co-authored from June 2024 called them “a miraculous, life-saving advance offering staggering efficacy in adults.” 

But on social media, Prasad has an established history of playing to an anti-vaccine, conspiratorial audience. He has promoted the lab leak theory of COVID’s origins, suggesting Fauci could be prosecuted for his alleged role in causing the pandemic. 

Prasad has cast doubt on the safety, efficacy, and necessity of COVID vaccines, especially for children and young people. About 1,800 American children have died from COVID. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2022, 1.3 per cent of U.S. children had ever had long COVID. But Prasad opposes inoculating youth against the disease and has repeatedly overstated the risks of rare side effects of vaccination. 

When the bivalent boosters became available in October 2022, Prasad was one of the prominent medical voices suggesting they'd been insufficiently tested. 

For years, he has been a critic of Marks — his predecessor — stating in 2022 that he “might be the worst FDA regulator in modern history” over the emergency use authorization of bivalent boosters. In the wake of Marks’ resignation, Prasad accused him of being a “rubber stamp” for COVID boosters.

“This is sadly so predictable,” said Jessica Malaty Rivera, an infectious diseases epidemiologist and AJI scientific advisor. She said the Trump administration isn’t just giving a platform to figures who spent the past few years undermining science — it’s handing them the levers of power.

“Prasad has mocked mask wearing, denied the reality of long COVID, misrepresented vaccine safety data, and compared public health policies to Nazi Germany. He, just like RFK Jr., is a threat to public health and the integrity of vaccine science in this country.”

More recently, he called for over half a billion in Biden-era funding for Moderna's H5N1 vaccine to be pulled, citing public distrust of mRNA technology. In March, Prasad publicly reveled in the company’s stock price dropping over the previous year, writing “MRNA technology is so promising and everyone wants it!! 🥳.” He also argued that mRNA vaccines ought to be deprioritized for NIH funding.

With Prasad’s appointment, vaccine skeptics now dominate the ranks of the administration’s top health advisors. Kennedy, Bhattacharya, and Makary have all made statements casting doubt on mRNA’s safety and utility as a vaccine platform. So too has Makary’s new special assistant, Tracy Beth Høeg, a doctor and epidemiologist whose hiring was announced last month.

All have ties to the anti-vaccine Brownstone Institute, a dark money group that crafted a blueprint for a congressional inquiry into the COVID pandemic — possibly to assist the GOP-led House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. 

The impact of having so many vaccine critics in key public health roles is already being felt. The FDA recently delayed the full approval of Novavax’s COVID booster, with demands for new trial data that could lead to the company’s bankruptcy. The vaccine is fully approved in dozens of countries.

Last month, at the first annual meeting of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which sets recommendations for vaccine policy, Høeg, who is involved in the delay of Novavax, cast doubt on various vaccines.

As the administration loads up on mRNA vaccine skeptics, it is putting $500 million toward outdated vaccine technology developed nearly a century ago. The regime’s preferred vaccine platform was abandoned in the ‘70s due to high rates of severe fever and seizures in children.

As half a billion dollars is funneled into the puzzling new vaccine initiative, bypassing competitive funding processes, the project’s architects — now installed in top posts across U.S. health agencies — stand to benefit directly.