Former top health official criticizes RFK Jr. for downplaying measles deaths
The former top vaccines official at the Food and Drug Administration criticized Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for downplaying the deaths of unvaccinated children from measles, amid this year's record outbreak of the virus.
"To dismiss children's deaths due to infectious diseases that are preventable by vaccines as just expected or not a big deal, that's just not acceptable to me," said Dr. Peter Marks, in an interview airing Sunday on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan."
Weekly measles cases have climbed to the highest levels seen in the U.S. since a 2019 wave of the virus, which had been the worst in decades. Three deaths have been linked to this year's measles outbreak, including two unvaccinated children in Texas.
"We've had three measles deaths in this country over 20 years, and we're trying to refocus the press to get them to pay attention to the chronic disease epidemic," Kennedy said Thursday at a White House Cabinet meeting.
Kennedy also contrasted U.S. measles case numbers to Europe, where thousands more infections and dozens of deaths have been reported in recent months. Kennedy has also used the comparison as evidence that his response to the outbreak was a success.
Marks criticized Kennedy's comparison, noting that Europe's figures "includes Romania, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, other places that have less robust public health efforts than we do." He also said that "even a single death in this country from measles, it's just— it's just not excusable."
"That's just not the right thing to do. We should be comparing our measles response now to what we accomplished during the first two decades of the 20th century, until the 2019 measles outbreak, which is, we shouldn't be having any deaths from measles," said Marks.
Changes at the FDA
Before he was ousted by Kennedy's aides, Marks was the director of the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, which regulates vaccines and other medical products derived from living sources. He was also the architect of the Operation Warp Speed effort to speed the development of COVID-19 vaccines during the pandemic.
He warned that it is now "challenging in this environment" for some of his former colleagues in the federal government to endorse vaccines.
"There's a whole host of people who can't speak out like I am that are saying, you know, this is a vaccine for which the benefits so greatly outweigh the risks," Marks said.
Days after Marks submitted his resignation letter, Kennedy implemented steep layoffs and forced resignations across the FDA, as part of a sweeping restructuring of the nation's health agencies.
The cuts have forced federal health officials to confront difficult decisions, including over how to prioritize fewer food and drug safety inspections. Marks praised the remaining staff at the agency as "heroes in public health" who are "struggling because there's a lot to be done."
"They keep tabs on the infections. They make sure that the vaccines that are coming in for approvals might work their way through. They make sure that outbreaks are investigated. Those people are continuing to do their job the best they possibly can," Marks said.
Marks said the delay to an approval decision on Novavax's COVID-19 vaccine, which was expected to be greenlighted earlier this month by the FDA, was concerning. And he warned that his own ouster could signal a change to the agency's approach to vaccines.
"Why would you de-emphasize something that is so basic to public health," Marks said.
"Does a disservice to pseudoscience"
Marks said he never interacted directly with Kennedy as secretary. He also said he did not know much about the administration's efforts to reopen research into the repeatedly debunked theory that vaccines cause autism, amid broader plans to determine the cause of autism.
Asked about Kennedy's claim that "we know it is an environmental toxin" causing autism, Marks said it was "very rare for scientists to speak in absolutes." Kennedy has been criticized for years for claiming that vaccines cause autism, among a range of unfounded claims he has espoused about the danger posed by immunizations.
"Most things are not that black and white, and we don't speak in absolutes. Whereas pseudoscientists find it very easy to speak in absolutes because they're not actually looking to use science for the benefit of mankind, they're usually using science for their own benefit," he said.
Marks said he was familiar with the past work of Dr. Mark Geier and his son, David Geier, who The Washington Post reported has been tasked by Kennedy this year to revisit a past Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study on vaccines and autism.
"They have a firm and fixed notion that vaccines cause autism. So it's very hard for me to see how we're going to get to any other idea than vaccines cause autism," Marks said.
Describing the work by Geier and his father as pseudoscience "does a disservice to pseudoscience," Marks said.
David Geier was fined by Maryland regulators for practicing medicine without a license, including for prescribing the drug Lupron to autistic children. Lupron is also used as a chemical castration drug for sex offenders.
"I don't know. I can't even conceive as a physician of how he thought that could be a good idea," said Marks.
