RFK Jr fires top NIH scientist weeks after she files whistleblower complaint

Source: The Guardian

Fri 3 Oct 2025 10.25 EDT
Last modified on Fri 3 Oct 2025 15.21 EDT


The US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, has fired a top scientist at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) just three weeks after she had filed a whistleblower complaint against the Trump administration relating to its hostility towards vaccines, according to a report.

Jeanne Marrazzo has been removed from her NIH job, the New York Times reported. She had already been demoted in March from her senior position as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Last month, Marrazzo filed a whistleblower complaint saying that her removal from the top position had been an act of retribution after she had protested about moves taken by the Trump administration to undermine vaccine research. She also alleged in the complaint that Trump officials had been flouting court orders and politicizing decisions over grants.

Kennedy fired Marrazzo in a letter on 26 September that failed to give any explanation for the move. “In my capacity as secretary, I have decided to terminate your appointment as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease,” he wrote, according to the newspaper.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/03/rfk-jr-jeanne-marrazzo-nih-fired