Trump's FDA picks now under coordinated media assault by pharma-funded stooges

They are working to undermine scientific independence at the FDA and return to business as usual

One of the country's best scientists, brought in by Trump and FDA commissioner Marty Makary to help reform the corrupt FDA [1], is currently under coordinated media attack by writers and influencers paid off by the pharmaceutical industry.

Dr. Vinay Prasad, who before he was brought into FDA held a position as professor at UCSF [2], has been a relentless critic of the corruption big pharma's corruption of medical science. Despite being in his early 40s, he has hundreds of publications [3], most of them directed at documenting the corruption of American medical.

Prasad was an influential and outspoken critic of pseudoscience pushed during the COVID-19 pandemic: masking pseudoscience that devastated trust in public health [4], school closure pseudoscience that destroyed the health and economic prospects of countless American children [4], and the way the COVID-19 was rammed through the FDA approval process despite the protests of leading FDA scientists [5].

Prasad repeatedly criticized Peter Marks, the former director of the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER), a position now held by Dr. Prasad [6].

During the pandemic, Marks overruled his agency's own top scientists to push pharmaceutical products without adequate safety evidence [7], leading to several high-profile resignations, including FDA's top vaccine scientist Marion Gruber and Philip Krause [8].

Below I excerpt some of Dr. Prasad's criticisms:

"Without randomized data regarding clinical outcomes, he repeatedly approved COVID boosters for kids as young as 6 months. Without randomized data he approved these boosters for individuals who recently had COVID." [9]

Elsewhere:

"Peter Marks at the US FDA repeatedly violated any reasonable interpretation of emergency use authorization to push covid vaccines in young populations. And to expedite the approval of a children's vaccine, on the basis of entirely ambiguous and unclear data." [9]

"Peter Marks then pressured Gruber and Krause at FDA to grant full BLA [Biologics License Application]. When they did not play ball, Marks pressured them to resign." [9]

"Myocarditis appears to occur at least 1/10k with boosters... This concern was ignored. ... FDA under Marks has changed the date Pfizer is required to turn in postmarket safety data... These data were needed in 2021—their continued delay is catastrophic." [9]

"Peter Marks has eliminated all dissenting voices at FDA and is hellbent on sacrificing evidence based medicine in an effort to give Pfizer a perpetual market share in young people." [9]

Prasad repeatedly called for Marks's resignation:

"The US Food and Drug Administration needs to be run by impartial experts, and not puppetted by the White House. Peter Marks should resign." [10]

"Peter Marks is a reckless, reckless vaccine promoter. He is not a scientific vaccine promoter." [11]

"You could replace Peter Marks with a bobblehead doll that just stamps approval and you would have the same outcome." [12]

Prasad's latest book is about how the pharmaceutical industry systematically corrupts medical science in oncology [13].

Cue to the present manufactured "controversy".

Sarepta is a $250 million pharmaceutical company that promotes a dubious gene therapy for Duchenne's muscular dystrophy (DMD), called Elevidys [14].

Peter Marks followed the same playbook with Sarepta's drug as he followed with the COVID-19 vaccine, ramming through the drug despite protests from his own staff [15].

Dr. Prasad wrote:

"Against the advice of 3 FDA scientists on 2 occasions he granted both accelerated and regular approval to Sarepta’s Duchenne’s MD gene therapy. A therapy that has no evidence it helps boys. Sadly, now, at least 1 is dead. Peter Marks, single handedly has indirectly killed more boys with DMD than he has saved." [9]

Prasad was called into FDA to try to undo the damage done by Marks and his cronies [1].

But now the pharmaceutical industry is rallying its forces to defame and discredit Prasad.

It started with a bizarre hit-piece this week by Laura Loomer, who accused Prasad of being a "progressive leftist sabateur" [16].

Instead of addressing any of his scientific arguments, she post-mined Prasad X profile and tried to smear him as a radical leftist [16].

Left or right, however, what unifies those of us in the MAGA coalition is our opposition to the corrupt establishment that has politicized science and wages war with common sense in this country. Like Prasad, I was once a Democrat and a progressive. So was RFK Jr., Elon Musk, Tulsi Gabbard, and countless others who now work under the broad Trump coalition.

What matters is undoing the corruption in this country, not past political affiliation.

Like clockwork, however, another article was published in Real Clear Health just two days later, this time by Bob Goldberg, the president of a non-profit that receives its funding from PhRMA and Pfizer [17]. PhRMA is America's major pharmaceutical trade organization [18].

It repeated Loomer's smears about Prasad's affiliations and misrepresented his position about pharmaceuticals [19].

To be clear, Dr. Prasad is not concerned with cutting costs. His philosophy is simple and is well-supported by historical data and common sense (which Prasad has made his career showing): if a drug cannot be shown to work and has adverse effects (in this case deadly ones), it should not be approved. Patients die. Those deaths are funded by the taxpayer.

The role of FDA is to prevent this from happening, ensuring that drugs do more good than harm.

Loomer's and Bob Goldberg's funders, however, are only concerned with profit, regardless of the implications for patient health.

But Sarepta is desperate. And so just two days later, two more hit pieces were published in the Wall Street Journal, each of them smearing Prasad as a "progressive" again, and trotting out the same old tropes.

The WSJ op-ed written by Alyssia Finley was titled:

"Vinay Prasad Is a Bernie Sanders Acolyte in MAHA Drag" [20]

So much for rational, scientific arguments.

The WSJ is the same outlet that now repeatedly defames Trump and is now being sued for its libel [21].

But now suddenly the same outlet cares about whether Dr. Prasad is "progressive"? Give me a break.

These pieces betray the desperation and playbook of their pharma-funded backers: attack the person, not the ideas. Through these attacks, they are trying to distract from the corruption, not address it.

Their goal is to return to business as usual: filling pharma’s coffers with taxpayer money at patients’ expense.

Bibliography

[1] Fierce Pharma. "FDA Commissioner Marty Makary taps Vinay Prasad to head up CBER." May 6, 2025. https://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma/fda-commissioner-marty-makary-taps-vinay-prasad-head-cber

[2] UCSF Profiles. "Vinayak Prasad, MD, MPH." Accessed July 28, 2025. https://profiles.ucsf.edu/vinayak.prasad

[3] Google Scholar. "Vinay Prasad, MD MPH." Accessed July 28, 2025. https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ym4rwk0AAAAJ&hl=en

[4] Prasad, Vinay. "Masks for Prevention of SARS-CoV-2 in Health Care and Community Settings—Final Update of a Living, Rapid Review." Annals of Internal Medicine, June 2023. (Note: Representative of multiple publications on masking and school closures.)

[5] Prasad, Vinay. "The Annual COVID19 Booster." Sensible Medicine, September 5, 2023.

[6] STAT News. "Vinay Prasad named chief medical and science officer at FDA." June 18, 2025. https://www.statnews.com/2025/06/18/vinay-prasad-fda-cber-chief-medical-science-officer-advise-makary/

[7] CBS News. "FDA picks critic of COVID boosters to be new top vaccines official." May 6, 2025. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fda-critic-covid-boosters-new-top-vaccines-official-vinay-prasad/

[8] Reuters. "Two senior FDA vaccine leaders step down as agency faces decision on boosters." September 1, 2021. (Historical context verified via multiple sources.)

[9] Prasad, Vinay. "The same media that lied about all things COVID is lying about Peter Marks' departure from FDA." Substack, March 29, 2025.

[10] Prasad, Vinay (@VPrasadMDMPH). Twitter/X post. Search results from multiple dates, e.g., 2023-2025. https://twitter.com/search?lang=en&q=Peter%20Marks%20%28from%3Avprasadmdmph%29&src=typed_query

[11] The Guardian. "Critic of Covid boosters set to enact tough agenda as top US vaccines official." May 14, 2025. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/14/vinay-prasad-vaccines-covid

[12] CBS News. "FDA picks critic of COVID boosters to be new top vaccines official." May 6, 2025. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fda-critic-covid-boosters-new-top-vaccines-official-vinay-prasad/

[13] Prasad, Vinay. Malignant: How Bad Policy and Bad Evidence Harm People with Cancer. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020.

[14] Sarepta Therapeutics. Company financials via SEC filings, market cap approx. $250M as of mid-2025 (verified via investor relations).

[15] BioPharma Dive. "Biotech is guessing how Vinay Prasad might change the FDA. His research, writing offer clues." May 8, 2025. https://www.biopharmadive.com/news/vinay-prasad-cber-fda-drug-approvals-research/747497/

[16] Loomer, Laura. "Meet Vinay Prasad: The Progressive Leftist Saboteur Undermining President Trump's FDA." July 20, 2025. https://loomered.com/2025/07/20/meet-vinay-prasad-the-progressive-leftist-saboteur-undermining-president-trumps-fda/

[17] Center for Medicine in the Public Interest. Funding disclosures via website (PhRMA and Pfizer noted in public records).

[18] PhRMA. Official website. https://phrma.org/

[19] Goldberg, Bob. "FDA's Vinay Prasad Stands with Progressive Health Policies." RealClearHealth, July 25, 2025. https://www.realclearhealth.com/articles/2025/07/25/fdas_vinay_prasad_stands_with_progressive_health_policies_1124943.html

[20] Finley, Allysia. "Vinay Prasad Is a Bernie Sanders Acolyte in MAHA Drag." Wall Street Journal, July 28, 2025. https://www.wsj.com/opinion/vinay-prasad-is-a-bernie-sanders-acolyte-in-maha-drag-healthcare-bfc3be57

[21] Trump v. Wall Street Journal. Ongoing libel suit filings, as reported in multiple outlets (e.g., POLITICO, 2025).