NIH whistleblower details clash over childhood vaccines with Trump administration: "We became inconvenient"

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: CBS News

Updated on: September 8, 2025 / 9:54 PM EDT


Washington — A former top National Institutes of Health leader who says she was removed from her position after a dispute with Trump administration officials detailed the internal clashes at the elite medical research agency Monday, and warned of an agenda that poses "a substantial and specific danger to public health and safety."

Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo described in an exclusive interview with CBS News being silenced when she and her colleagues tried to oppose efforts pushed by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to cancel vaccine research and clinical trials.

"Ultimately, we were disregarded," said Marrazzo, who previously led the NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, or NIAID. "We became inconvenient."

Marrazzo, who filed a whistleblower complaint with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel last week alleging illegal retaliation, was placed on leave and reassigned in April. She had been in the role since August 2023, succeeding Dr. Anthony Fauci, who had served as NIAID director for nearly four decades, as well as chief medical adviser to former President Joe Biden. "It was not unexpected," Marrazzo said of her removal. "It was still a body blow."

Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nih-whistleblower-marrazzo-trump-rfk-vaccines/

[gab13by13]

1. AI is going to order doctors what to do.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

2. MaddowBlog-RFK Jr. adds to Team Trump's pattern of punishing whistleblowers

In the current administration, whistleblowers keep losing their jobs after speaking up. Take the NIH’s Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, for example.

It's almost as if they don't give a shit about the American people...

RFK Jr. adds to Team Trump’s pattern of punishing whistleblowers
www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddo...

#RFKDidThis #TrumpDidThis #RepublicansDidThis #GOPKakistocracy #AmericanFascistParty #Project2025 #NoRepublicansEverAgain #USPol

— Democracy Matters! (@democracymatters.bsky.social) 2025-10-03T19:09:50.217Z

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/rfk-jr-adds-team-trumps-pattern-punishing-whistleblowers-rcna235446

Earlier this year, Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, who led the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, discovered that Donald Trump’s appointees were repeatedly questioning the role of vaccines in protecting health. When she raised concerns, Marrazzo was demoted.

That, however, was not the end of the dispute. The infectious diseases specialist filed a whistleblower complaint, and as The New York Times reported in a new piece, that appears to have led to her ouster. From the article:

Three weeks after a leading scientist at the National Institutes of Health filed a whistle-blower complaint against the Trump administration, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy fired her, according to her lawyer and a copy of the termination letter. ... Dr. Marrazzo said in her complaint last month that the N.I.H. had placed her on administrative leave after she objected to Trump administration actions that she said had endangered research subjects, defied court orders and undermined vaccine research.

In theory, Marrazzo might have been able to turn to the federal agency dedicated to protecting whistleblowers, but Donald Trump fired its director and gutted the office......

In theory, there’s nothing especially partisan or ideological about whistleblowers. Sometimes those who work in federal agencies will see some kind of wrongdoing — corruption, mismanagement, inefficiencies, fraud and misuse of resources, etc. — and it’s in everyone’s interest to have a system in which such witnesses are able to come forward, confident in the knowledge that they’ll be heard and respected without being punished.

In practice, that system appears to be unraveling with unnerving speed, sending a signal to federal officials: Those who speak up should expect to be punished.