The head of vaccine safety at the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) believes that President-elect Donald Trump’s embrace of vaccine skeptics presents an opportunity for the scientific community to educate the public about the value of these life-saving drugs. If these efforts fail, it may result in “natural consequences.”
Peter Marks from the FDA spoke at the Jefferies London Healthcare Conference on Thursday (JEF +2.60%). Marks currently directs the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER). The center oversees the safety and efficacy of biological products, including vaccines.
Marks believes now is the time for scientists to make the case for vaccines, as Trump has named noted anti-vaccine crusader Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the next Secretary of Health and Human Services.
According to Bloomberg, Trump is expected to nominate surgeon and public health researcher Marty Makary as the next FDA commissioner. Makary previously criticized the agency’s approval of COVID-19 booster vaccines.
He has also written several op-eds about the pandemic, including one claiming that the United States will achieve herd immunity by April 2021 and a more recent one arguing that vaccines should not be recommended universally for lower-risk patients.
Marks warned that if public health officials fail to make the case for vaccines, there will be consequences.
“If that doesn’t work, and everything runs wild in the opposite direction, just as your kids learn natural consequences — if you put your hand on a hot oven, you will get burned, et cetera, that kind of thing — the American public will learn the natural consequences of what happens if vaccination rates fall too far, because we will start to see measles, polio, things that we should never see in a well-developed country, come back,” said Marks, who was virtually speaking.
Marks anticipates a heated debate over COVID-19 and pediatric vaccines, but hopes for a “degree of moderation” on vaccines in general.
