Two top officials from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) submitted their resignations this week.
The two expressed frustration with the Biden administration’s handling of the COVID-19 vaccine’s booster shots, disagreeing with the push to offer them to the public prior to the FDA’s approval.
Business Insider reports how both Dr. Marion Gruber—director of the FDA’s Office of Vaccines Research and Review who’s been with the agency for 32 years—and her deputy, Dr. Philip Krause, submitted their resignation notices on Tuesday.
Politico notes that the two’s departure was spurred by a disagreement with the White House’s premature pushing of the booster shots as well differences with the FDA’s head vaccine official, Peter Marks. Their leave could reportedly inspire a “potential mutiny” amongst other staff members and third-party vaccine advisors who feel similarly, and who believe they’ve been left out of the decision-making process.
The Daily Mail gives the backstory of how the FDA released a statement earlier this week signed by head CDC officials such as Dr. Anthony Fauci highlighting a plan for the release of the booster shots, although the publication notes how this statement was merely a press release, not an official FDA authorization.
“I think since [the statement] was given with a date, many assumed that it was given a blessing by the White House and this was the next step,” states Helen Keipp Talbot, committee member and associate professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University. She additionally stated that health providers have “now put themselves at risk” by immunizing individuals outside of both the FDA’s and CDC’s recommendations.
A separate Politico article adds how a number of members of the CDC’s independent vaccine advisory panel had already expressed frustration with the Biden administration on Monday, deeming his plan to release the booster shots as premature.
Dr. Gruber and Dr. Krause plan to leave the FDA by October and November, respectively.