Vinay Prasad, the doctor until now in charge of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) vaccine program, will leave his position in April, an agency spokesperson announced this Friday.
Prasad had been appointed to the position last year to head the Center for Biological Evaluation and Research, which has a lot of weight and influence for the regulation of medical products, drugs and vaccines.
His management had been marked by some controversies, which had already led him to temporarily leave office in July 2025 due to criticism from an ultra-conservative activist, Laura Loomer, about the management of a genetic therapy. Prasad returned to his post a few weeks later.
But in November there was another controversy, when he sent a memo to FDA staff in which he stated without evidence that COVID-19 vaccines had supposedly killed 10 children. So far there is no evidence or documents to support this statement, which was harshly criticized by a dozen former FDA commissioners.
Multiple independent investigations, as well as studies from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), have shown that COVID-19 vaccines protect both children and adults so that they are less likely to suffer severe symptoms of the potentially fatal disease.
Marty Makary, the current commissioner of the FDA, said this Friday that during Prasad’s administration a record number of drug or vaccine approvals were achieved during the month of December.
“He accomplished a lot during this time, when he was on sabbatical from the University of California, San Francisco, and will return to his academic home next month,” Makary said via social network X. “We will name a successor before his departure is solidified.”
Prasad’s departure is the latest change after several in the leadership of federal health agencies.
In January, Jim O’Neill left his position as acting director of the CDC, having previously taken over following the departure of Susan Monarez, who was at the CDC’s direction for only 29 days.
Monarez said in an appearance before Congress that she had been fired by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. because she did not want to blindly endorse changes to medical guidelines and suggestions about getting vaccinated. Kennedy Jr. has had ties to anti-vaccine groups for many years.
