Senior NIH Officials Allege Retaliation as Motive for Their Ouster

Two former officials at the NIH have filed whistleblower complaints in which they allege that their removal from office was a result of their resistance to giving politics priority over science and their efforts to defend vaccines and research grants. They filed their complaints last week. 

Back in April, Kathleen Neuzil and Jeanne Marazzo were put on administrative leave from their NIH top positions. In their complaints filed last week at the United States Office of Special Counsel, they claim that the work environment at the NIH after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took over as HHS Secretary became hostile to evidence-based scientific norms, including vaccines. 

The complaints also claim that for purely political reasons, the current administration in Washington has canceled clinical trials and medical research grants. 

The two ousted officials cite details from a pair of meetings, including one that took place at the White House, where the acting director of the NIH, Mathew Memoli, echoes the HHS Secretary’s limited focus on infectious diseases while emphasizing chronic diseases. 

The two officials say they decided to file those whistleblower complaints in a bid to educate the nation about the grave public dangers that the country is facing due to the actions that Secretary Kennedy is taking while motivated by politics. Other officials occupying high-level positions at NIH and HHS are also taking those politically motivated positions, and this is increasing the risks the country and the world faces, the complainants say. 

Morrazzo succeeded Anthony Fauci as the head of the allergy and infectious diseases institute in 2023. The mass layoffs that happened at HHS saw her being placed on administrative leave starting April 1. Her whistleblower complaint indicates that when she was placed on leave, she was informed that she was going to be reassigned to address the unacceptable vacancy rate at the Indian Health Service. To date, that reassignment has never happened. 

A high degree of turmoil has plagued federal health agencies from the time Kennedy assumed office, with the latest shocker being Susan Monarez’s firing from her position as the CDC’s director barely a month from the time she took office. Writing in the WSJ, she revealed that she was removed from her position for putting kids above politics, evidence over ideology, and facts over fear. She added that she resisted efforts to rubber stamp supposed vaccine recommendations from an advisory committee yet the committee hadn’t yet made those recommendations. 

As the fallout from the shifts brought by Kennedy to the HHS deepens, it looks like for-profit entities like Soligenix Inc. (NASDAQ: SNGX) will now have to carry the burden of conducting studies aimed at developing interventions targeting infectious diseases with no similar efforts being conducted or funded by federal government agencies. It remains to be seen how this shift will impact progress in medical research over the coming decades. 

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