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.”
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Marrazzo said in her complaint that she “raised concerns” to agency leadership when Department of Health and Human Services and NIH leaders “pursued actions that not only directly undermined NIH’s goal of furthering medical research, but also constituted a substantial and specific danger to public health and safety,” while wasting funds by canceling research projects before findings could be implemented.
Many allegations in the complaint focus on Dr. Matthew Memoli, who served as acting NIH director earlier this year before moving to the health agency’s No. 2 post.
Marrazzo claims Memoli made statements downplaying the importance of vaccines that closely mirrored the views of Kennedy, a longtime vaccine skeptic. In a series of meetings, Memoli allegedly argued that “vaccines are unnecessary if populations are healthy,” and that the NIH “should not focus on vaccines,” Marrazzo alleged in her complaint.
Asked by CBS News about interactions with people in positions similar to Memoli’s and those above him, Marrazzo said, “It was one of the hardest periods of my career,” and she and her colleagues who were involved “felt like we were sort of a voice in the wilderness.”
Marrazzo described a dispute about the importance of giving children the flu vaccine. She said she outlined her advocacy on two occasions for a universal flu vaccine that covered seasonal and avian flu, emphasizing the importance of continued investment in flu vaccine research.
“Both times that I presented this, Dr. Memoli made the point that, yes, it would be great. It would be nice to have a flu vaccine,” Marrazzo said. “But what was most important was to have children who were healthy and had a healthy immune system.”
Marrazzo said “it was a little bit like hearing the echo of, again, what Secretary Kennedy had been promulgating in terms of healthy kids.”
“It was extremely alarming,” she added.
An HHS spokesperson said in a statement that “NIH Deputy Director Dr. Matt Memoli emphasizes that vaccines are not interchangeable; each must be assessed on its own merits.”
“He remains fully aligned with this administration’s vaccine priorities and consistently champions gold-standard, evidence-based science,” the spokesperson said.
