Two former top officials at NIH have filed whistleblower complaints that claim “they were removed from leadership positions over their objections to agency leadership’s hostility toward vaccines, politicization of scientific research, and suspension of funding for clinical trials and foreign research.” CIDRAP has the news.
The two officials in question are Jeanne Marrazzo, former director of NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Kathleen Neuzil, former director of NIH’s Fogarty International Center.
The complaints center around “a series of meetings between Marrazzo, Neuzil, and Matthew Memoli, MD, who was named acting NIH director in January…in which Memoli dismissed the importance of flu vaccines amid a record year for pediatric flu deaths and stated a belief that vaccines aren’t necessary if children are healthy.” Memoli and other NIH officials later “rejected Marrazzo and Neuzil’s concerns about White House-directed suspension of funding for some ongoing clinical trials and defended plans to cut funding for foreign research and align future NIH funding with Trump administration priorities.”
Since February, NIH “has fired more than 1,000 employees and cut an estimated $2 billion in research grants related to foreign research, COVID-19, and projects the Trump administration believes are linked to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts.” Meanwhile, IDSA called for Kennedy’s resignation, voicing concern that “American people will needlessly suffer and die as a result of policies that turn away from sound interventions.”
