FDA's top vaccine official leaves post after less than four months

Source: The Guardian

The top vaccine official at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Vinay Prasad, has left the federal agency less than four months after being appointed as the head of the division overseeing biological products like blood, vaccines, and cellular and gene therapies, a government spokesperson has said.

Prasad, an oncologist and a professor of epidemiology, biostatistics and medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, had previously criticized the FDA.

He was a fierce critic of US Covid-19 vaccine and mask mandates and, in the second Trump administration, he was controversially appointed as the director of the FDA’s center for biologics evaluation and research in May.

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The government gave no details about the reason for his departure but he had fierce critics on both sides of the political aisle and the Washington Post reported, citing unnamed sources, that he had been ousted amid protests by conservative voices, with no response from Prasad to requests for comment.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/30/fda-vaccines-vinay-prasad-trump