The Food and Drug Administration restored a top vaccine regulator to his position at the agency just weeks after firing him.
Dr. Vinay Prasad resigned after some of his past comments were highlighted by right-wing commentator Laura Loomer, though he was widely believed to have been forced out. His firing was against the wishes of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, who advocated on his behalf. The HHS celebrated his rehiring in a statement, blaming “fake news” for his previous firing.
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“At the FDA’s request, Dr. Vinay Prasad is resuming leadership of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research,” HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said in a statement. “Neither the White House nor HHS will allow the fake news media to distract from the critical work the FDA is carrying out under the Trump administration.”
Loomer was quick to denounce the rehiring of Prasad, whom she labeled a “progressive Marxist.”
“In another egregious personnel decision under the Trump administration, it is now being reported that longtime progressive Marxist Vinay Prasad who referred to President Trump’s supporters as criminals and compared them to drug addicts after saying he stabbed a Trump voodoo doll to ‘curse Trump’ is apparently back at FDA after @MartyMakary advocated for him,” she posted on X.
She pledged to ramp up her criticisms and to highlight other personnel decisions she was opposed to in the coming weeks.
The HHS said Prasad resigned last month in order to spend more time in his family and not be a “distraction.”
“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 at the time, 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.”
FDA’S TOP VACCINE OFFICIAL VINAY PRASAD RESIGNS AFTER LOOMER CAMPAIGN AGAINST HIM
A person familiar with the decision, speaking with Politico, said he was rehired after the Trump administration reviewed his past comments highlighted by Loomer.
Prasad was a controversial hire originally due to his criticism of COVID-19 vaccines. He had personally intervened to place limitations on Novavax and Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines.