Vinay Prasad is the new head of the FDA Center for Biologics Evaluation & Research. Here is What You Need to Know.
Another Anti-vaccine, Pro-Virus Quack Joins Trump's War on Public Health
So Marty Makary has installed UCSF oncologist and social media grifter Vinay Prasad at the FDA. Congratulations to the administration of the University of California San Francisco for refusing to uphold professional standards and let an anti-vaccine social media grifter run rampant in their halls for years, spreading dangerous falsehoods for personal profit. What a great example to set for future doctors and scientists!
First off, here is our 16k+ word profile of Prasad’s antics from 2020-2023 detailing his descent into anti-vax quackery, with countless direct quotes:
PROFILE: UCSF's Vinay Prasad
"Prasad will also publish an article in Tablet, during the deadliest month for COVID ending the lives of American children, titled "The Cult of Masked Schoolchildren: History will not look kindly on our evidence-free decision to make kids suffer most." Now, let's be clear. Prasad has never treated a child hospitalized for COVID-19 and never will. He's far too busy ranting and raving online, and this is far more profitable for Vinay."
Vinay Prasad has personally profited from slinging childish insults and pathetic smears across social media for years. We kept a running tally here:
THE LIST: 120 Organizations, Institutions, Individuals, and Tools that UCSF's Vinay Prasad Has Attacked
Recently and rather unfortunately, the Trump Administration has foolishly elected to cherry-pick University of California San Francisco Professor Vinay Prasad, an oncologist with an obnoxious obsession of insulting others on social media, to defend their crusade to cripple and humiliate the National Insti…
Vinay Prasad has personally profited from spreading falsehoods about vaccines, masks, and COVID-19 on social media, especially in children. He frequently attacks research and scientists that debunk his absurd claims, refusing to acknowledge that his favorite virus is causing awful harm to children, as we’ve compiled here:
The reason why is that Vinay Prasad personally profits from when COVID-19 kills and disables children, because as doctors and scientists speak up and struggle to prevent these bad outcomes, Vinay Prasad recieved social media revenue from Substack, Youtube, Twitter, and other platforms by attacking those doctors and scientists for doing their job. We detail how this worked here:
Now, Prasad will have power and influence at the FDA to sabotage the vaccines he personally profited from lying about, even going so far to argue that the CDC was hallucinating pediatric COVID-19 deaths in an embarrassing sham of a paper. However, SARS-CoV-2 is not the only virus Prasad has championed. He also fearmongered about an imaginary H5N1 vaccine:
Vinay Prasad believes that governments should not intervene when pandemics strike. He recently argued on social media that public health should have sat by and done nothing as a brand-new virus, SARS-CoV-2, ripped through the nation infecting hundreds of millions of unvaccinated Americans in Spring 2020 - saying that only a single dose of the two-series COVID-19 vaccine should have been given to “old non immune people Q1 2021” with zero evidence to support this claim.
It should be obvious at this point that Vinay Prasad has absolutely no idea what he’s talking about and is a depraved anti-vaccine radical that will only sabotage the work of the Food & Drug Administration on behalf of deadly & disabling viruses. He cultivated a dedicated anti-vax fanbase on social media while blocking the overwhelming majority of medical and scientific professionals who were brave enough to correct his blatant errors.
He also championed forcing children to inhale toxic wildfire smoke, claiming the use of PPE such as N95 respirators was a “mental illness:”
This is the level of unprofessional immaturity that is now heading up a senior position at the Food and Drug Administration. It’s now very likely that Americans won’t have an updated COVID-19 vaccine this fall, and when combined with waning immunity, may lead to a very grim winter season.
That’s all fine though, because this is what Vinay Prasad thinks about death:
Congratulations to the University of California San Francisco for refusing our repeated warnings of his misconduct. This is now your legacy - teaching students that being a misogynistic anti-vaccine social media troll is the best way to advance your career in science and medicine. For all of the journalists like Liz Highleyman, who insisted Prasad was a voice worth listening to, the blood that follows is on your hands.
Journalists who would like to do accurate reporting on Vinay Prasad, feel free to source the quotes I’ve archived above across the past couple of years. The Pandemic Accountability Index is entirely reader-supported, and annual subscriptions are now 35% off (~$35 USD) until May 15th to celebrate my birthday on Sunday.
Good night and good luck.