FDA Names New Top Vaccine Official After Resignation of Peter Marks

The Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) new top vaccine official is a university professor who has expressed criticism of how the agency handled COVID-19 vaccines. Dr. Vinay Prasad will head the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER), FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary said on May 6. Doctors with Sensible Medicine, a website with which Prasad was involved, said on Tuesday that Prasad was leaving the site to become the director of the CBER. Prasad did not respond to a request for comment by publication time. Prasad has frequently criticized in recent years the decisions FDA officials made, including the promotion of COVID-19 vaccines without clinical trial data, particularly for people who had previously been infected with COVID-19. He wrote in a 2024 review that there was “misplaced utilization, contradictory messaging, and poor deployment in those who would benefit most—the elderly and high-risk—alongside unrealistic messaging, exaggeration, and coercion in those who benefit least—young, healthy Americans.”...