Dr. Peter Marks, the outgoing top vaccine regulator at the Food and Drug Administration, says that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pushed him out because he wouldn't assist in his demands to find nonexistent data that vaccines are dangerous, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
"The outgoing official said he was speaking out to encourage parents to vaccinate their children against measles, as cases mount in Texas and New Mexico. He urged the Trump administration to give a full-throated endorsement of the measles vaccine because it can prevent deaths and recommended a vaccination campaign," reported Liz Essley Whyte. "An HHS spokesman didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. Kennedy has said he wants the federal government to step up its work fighting chronic disease. He has said he isn’t anti-vaccine, told senators he would follow the science and called stopping the measles outbreak a 'top priority.'"
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Nonetheless, since taking office he has already slow-walked anything to do with vaccines, and if the Trump administration is successful in its push to convince courts to let it unilaterally dismantle the Department of Education, he could also have strong say over medication for special education students, which he has also spread conspiracy theories about.
Marks, who is leaving his position on Saturday, told the Journal that Kennedy’s tenure has been "very scary."
“I can never give allegiance to anyone else other than to follow the science as we see it,” Marks said. “That does not mean that I can just roll over and take conspiracy theories and justify them.”
Marks being pushed out "furthers Kennedy’s remaking of the federal government’s health bureaucracy and handling of vaccines," continued the report, noting that "Early this week, the Trump administration began laying off thousands of U.S. health staffers and eliminating divisions."
This also comes as Kennedy is planning to back a new "study" fishing for evidence of the discredited link between vaccines and autism, headed up by David Geier, who has been punished by Maryland state regulators for practicing medicine without a license to conduct unethical experiments on autistic children.