An ousted vaccine official says Kennedy has requested data to justify the anti-science position, reports WSJ

(Reuters) -Pet Marks, the senior FDA vaccine official, ousted by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Kennedy, a well -known skeptic of the vaccine, announced last week its intention to reshape the federal public health agencies, in particular cutting jobs of 10,000 employees and centralizing certain functions of the FDA, CDC and others under its competence.

Marks is the most prominent release of the FDA in the middle of the Donald Trump administration overhaul.

According to the WSJ report, Marks said he did not want to leave and had sought to collaborate with the Secretary of Health. Marks sent a memo to the acting commissioner of the American Food and Drug Administration at the start of Kennedy’s mandate which proposed listening sessions on vaccines and making information on clear vaccination for parents and doctors.

At the beginning of March, Kennedy’s team asked that the brands are putting data on cases of swelling of the brain and death caused by the measles vaccine – data which, according to Marks, do not exist because there was no case confirmed in the United States, added the report.

In the report, Marks said that Kennedy’s team was also interested in weakening the regulation of unproven STEM cell treatments, which are sold for diseases ranging from Alzheimer to arthritis. He proposed a new set of regulations that would maintain vigorous rules for risky but more indulgent treatments for less risky therapies.

Marks said that if these stem cells are badly made, they can harm people.

The new FDA commissioner, Marty Makary, supported the decision to overthrow the notes, according to the report, citing people familiar with the issue.

The FDA also seated on a vaccination request that its staff scientists had been ready to approve, missing a key deadline, and Makary was involved in the decision to retain approval, said the WSJ report, citing a person familiar with the issue.

On Wednesday, Novavax said that the FDA had missed its deadline for making a decision on the traditional approval of the company’s COVVI-19 vaccine.

The HHS and the brands did not immediately respond to Reuters’ comments.

(Report by Puyaan Singh in Bengaluru; edition by Maju Samuel)