Dr. Vinay Prasad, a top Food and Drug Administration official, stepped down from his position on Tuesday after being accused by right-wing activist Laura Loomer of being a “progressive, left-wing” figure seeking to sabotage the Trump administration.
Prasad was appointed by FDA Commissioner Marty Makary in May to be director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. He was also appointed last month to be the agency’s chief medical and science officer.
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Despite garnering conservatives’ support over matters such as his skepticism of COVID-19 vaccines and criticism of pandemic-era mask mandates, Prasad recently drew outrage from factions of the Republican Party, including Loomer, who disagreed with his approach to approving gene therapies for rare diseases and accused him of holding liberal views.
Amid the controversy, the Department of Health and Human Services confirmed this week that Prasad stepped down as the FDA’s top vaccine and gene therapy regulator and chief medical and scientific officer.
“Dr. Prasad did not want to be a distraction to the great work of the FDA in the Trump administration and has decided to return to California and spend more time with his family,” a DHS spokesperson said of Prasad, who is also a hematologist-oncologist at the University of California, San Francisco. “We thank him for his service and the many important reforms he was able to achieve in his time at the FDA.”
The announcement seemingly scored another victory for Loomer, who was viewed as playing an integral role in multiple other resignations or firings of top officials in the Trump administration. President Donald Trump’s firing of top CIA doctor Terry Adirim, Janette Nesheiwat as his surgeon general pick, and several National Security Council staffers were widely credited to Loomer’s influence.
In Prasad’s case, Loomer highlighted past statements of support he made for Democratic lawmakers, including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). She pointed to old social media posts in which Prasad declared he was a “political liberal” and another in which he said he had a Trump “voodoo doll.” Loomer accused him of being “anti-Trump” and described him on her website as “The Progressive Leftist Saboteur.”
Loomer also criticized Prasad’s approach to drug approvals for rare diseases after he pushed back against approving several drugs, which she said was him “sabotaging” Trump’s deregulatory agenda.
Under Prasad’s oversight, FDA federal regulators cracked down on gene therapy companies that create medicines for rare diseases. Pushback against Prasad particularly rose after he resisted the gene therapy Elevidys for Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Critics argued he was anti-patient choice, putting him at odds with the Trump administration’s “Make America Healthy Again” ethos.
Despite enjoying support from Makary and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Prasad decided to step down due to Loomer’s public pressure campaign, according to the Seattle Times. Prasad previously expressed support for placebo-controlled trials of vaccines, a top priority of Kennedy, and raised alarms about the side effects of COVID-19 vaccines.
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Makary even publicly defended Prasad in an interview over the weekend with Politico, calling him an “impeccable scientist.”
“There’s not a political bone to his body,” Makary said. “I think he is one of the greatest scientific minds of our generation.”