RFK Jr. forces out Peter Marks, FDA's top vaccine scientist [View all]

Marks, an architect of Operation Warp Speed, warned that a recent measles outbreak shows how confidence in science and public health is being “undermined.”

The Trump administration on Friday pushed out Peter Marks, the nation’s top vaccine regulator and an architect of the U.S. program to rapidly develop coronavirus vaccines, a move that comes as Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. continues his overhaul of the nation’s health and science agencies amid a worsening U.S. outbreak of measles.

Marks, who joined the Food and Drug Administration in 2012 and had overseen its Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research since 2016, was offered the choice to resign or be fired, according to two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a sensitive situation.

He opted to resign, with an effective departure date of next Friday, April 5.

Marks is leaving his post with a “heavy heart,” he wrote in his resignation letter Friday, which was obtained by The Washington Post. The longtime regulator wrote that he was particularly worried about the measles outbreak in Texas, which “reminds us of what happens when confidence in well-established science underlying public health and well-being is undermined.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/03/28/rfk-jr-fda-vaccine-scientist-peter-marks/