Outgoing FDA officials attack Biden's vaccine booster plan

Two outgoing members of the Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Vaccines Research and Review were among the authors of an academic paper criticizing President Joe Biden’s plan for increased COVID-19 booster vaccines.

Director Marion Gruber and Deputy Director Phil Krause announced their resignations from the FDA on Aug. 31 and are set to leave this fall. Current administration sources told Politico that the pair resigned due to disagreements between the Biden administration and the agency over the efficacy of booster shots for the coronavirus vaccines.

Gruber and Krause were among 18 scientists who penned a Sept. 13 article in medical journal Lancet calling for vaccines to be dispensed to the unvaccinated rather than provided as boosters for those who have already received a full dose. Krause was listed as the primary author.

“Careful and public scrutiny of the evolving data will be needed to assure that decisions about boosting are informed by reliable science more than by politics,” the paper said. “Even if boosting were eventually shown to decrease the medium-term risk of serious disease, current vaccine supplies could save more lives if used in previously unvaccinated populations than if used as boosters in vaccinated populations .”