Ex-GOP staffer calls on FDA chief to resign over vaccine comments: 'This time permanently'

A former Republican Party staffer has called on the Food and Drug Administration chief to resign over recent, controversial comments.

Derek Hunter, the ex-staffer for the late Senator Conrad Burns (R-Mont.), made his position clear on Vinay Prasad, saying that the FDA chief must resign. Writing in The Hill, Hunter suggested Prasad's comments on COVID vaccinations must lead to his resignation from the FDA.

Hunter wrote his comments in response to a feature from the Wall Street Journal, which profiled Prasad's previous comments on vaccinations. The ex-GOP staffer wrote, "I know the importance of hope and of new pharmaceuticals coming to market. In that context, I find Prasad’s actions incomprehensible.

"The Journal reported that he told colleagues he 'would like to issue more letters refusing to accept applications so that he doesn’t have to reject them after they have been evaluated.'”

"In November, Prasad made claims that COVID vaccines were responsible for the deaths of 10 children, but he has never offered any 'data to back up the claim.'

"According to the Journal, he said that “staff who disagreed with his operating principles should submit their resignations. What his principles are exactly seems nearly impossible to discern. If anyone should resign, I believe it should be him — this time permanently."

Hunter went on to suggest Prasad's comments may affect future investment for the FDA, which would walk a dangerous line given how tricky funding can be for the agency.

He wrote, "When I did health policy at the Heritage Foundation in the early 2000s, the cost to bring a new drug to market was about $1 billion, and the process could take a decade. That cost did not include the drugs that would go through, say, five years and then fail in trials; the billion was the average only of the drugs that eventually made it to market.

"With a limited window of exclusivity, for companies to recoup those costs before generics came to market, investment in treatments for rare diseases were especially hard to justify financially.

"If, as the Journal reports, these were research on “rare or hard-to-treat diseases,” they may well be the only treatments in development. With few people afflicted and seemingly arbitrary regulatory leaders, companies will be very reluctant to invest anew and start over."