Dr. Vinay Prasad has criticized the government’s position on COVID-19 vaccines.
A new top Food and Drug Administration (FDA) official said on May 8 that vaccines are good but that they need to be backed by evidence.
In his first comments since being named the director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER), Dr. Vinay Prasad said that the FDA is going to have a standard of “solid evidence” when dealing with vaccines.
“I think vaccines are like drugs, which is that when given at the right time and the right moment to the right person, they’re life-saving,” Prasad said. “But just like drugs, they need to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, and always take into the context that you’re giving.”
Prasad has been a consistent critic of the government’s stance on COVID-19 vaccines, which in the past included vaccine mandates and currently recommends at least one dose annually for Americans aged 6 months and older.
“The current childhood vaccination schedule is not correct. Covid-19 vaccine needs to be removed for babies. It would be irresponsible not to do that,” Prasad wrote on social media platform X in February.
The current childhood vaccination schedule is not correct. Covid-19 vaccine needs to be removed for babies. It would be irresponsible not to do that. https://t.co/Sl5t6xqqk7
— Vinay Prasad MD MPH (@VPrasadMDMPH) February 21, 2025
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has said that officials are reviewing the placement of COVID-19 vaccines on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s childhood vaccination schedule because they may not belong there.
In a 2022 paper co-written with Dr. Marty Makary, the FDA’s commissioner, and others, Prasad wrote that vaccine mandates at universities did not make sense and that regulatory agencies should make more vaccine data available to the public.
“Marty and I, throughout the pandemic, we were proponents of vaccines for the people in whom it had a huge benefit, but we were always a bit skeptical from a scientific standpoint about perhaps overdoing it in some low-risk populations,” Prasad said on Wednesday.
Questioning that “is not anti-vax, it’s pro-science,” he added later.
Prasad was speaking with Makary in a video released by the FDA. He replaced Dr. Peter Marks, who was involved with Operation Warp Speed, which poured taxpayer money into the development of COVID-19 vaccines. Marks, who said he resigned because of disagreements with Kennedy, repeatedly urged people to receive COVID-19 vaccines and, according to internal emails, helped rush the approval of Pfizer’s shot to enable vaccine mandates.
FDA Commissioner Makary sits down for a conversation with the newly appointed director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) Dr. Vinayak “Vinay” Kashyap Prasad and Sanjula Jain-Nagpal, Associate Director of Policy & Research Strategy, Office of the… pic.twitter.com/6KWH8CJhkk
— U.S. FDA (@US_FDA) May 8, 2025
