Former top vaccine official sues Trump administration over her firing

A former top official at the National Institutes of Health sued the Trump administration Tuesday, alleging she was illegally fired by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. after she blew the whistle on internal clashes over vaccine research at the agency. 

Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo ran the NIH division responsible for vaccine research until late March, when she was placed on indefinite leave. In a formal whistleblower complaint, she said she was sidelined because she pushed back against NIH officials appointed by President Trump who questioned the importance of childhood flu vaccines and canceled long-running clinical trials. 

She was terminated in October after she went public with her concerns in an exclusive interview with CBS News, which she claims was a further act of retaliation. 

“I spoke up because the decisions by HHS leadership have put the public’s health at risk and wasted billions of dollars — actions that will have devastating consequences for Americans’ safety and wellbeing for decades to come,” Marrazzo said in a statement on Tuesday, noting that she is seeking her job back and also aims to protect the rights afforded to federal employees who blow the whistle. 

“I was fired for calling this out, but I will not stay silent,” she said.  

A Health and Human Services spokesperson declined to comment on Marrazzo’s lawsuit. Under Kennedy, vaccine skeptics have been appointed to leadership roles across the health agencies, raising alarms among career scientists. 

Marrazzo’s allegations 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 claimed Memoli made statements downplaying the importance of vaccines that closely mirrored the views of Kennedy, who has a long history of sowing doubts about vaccines. In a series of meetings, Memoli argued that “vaccines are unnecessary if populations are healthy,” and that the NIH “should not focus on vaccines,” Marrazzo alleged in her lawsuit.

Marrazzo told CBS News it was like “hearing the echo of” the vaccine skepticism often promoted by Kennedy. “It was extremely alarming,” Marrazzo said.

An HHS spokesperson defended Memoli to CBS News, writing in a statement: “He remains fully aligned with this administration’s vaccine priorities and consistently champions gold-standard evidence-based science.” 

In 2023, Marrazzo succeeded Dr. Anthony Fauci as the director of the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease. In September, she followed a well-established whistleblower process for federal workers by filing a complaint with the Office of Special Counsel. 

However, in her lawsuit, she said she was now turning to the courts because “actions by the Trump administration have fully eroded the independence” of federal agencies that rule on whistleblower allegations and her claim “cannot be fairly investigated or adjudicated in these forums.”