The harder they fall

Vinay Prasad, who led the FDA's biologics center and was the agency's chief medical and scientific officer, is out. Lizzy has the story on his precipitous fall.

Prasad was dealing with multiple fronts of attack. FDA staff were leaking to the press — that really annoyed him, which we know because someone leaked Lizzy an email, in which Prasad complains about leaks. Trump allies were attacking him for pulling a gene therapy off the market. Democrats were not happy with his Covid-19 vaccine restrictions, and anti-vaccine advocates were lambasting him for approving the shots at all.

Read more about how Prasad's firebrand persona landed him a job at the FDA and ultimately led to his undoing.

cber

Tidmarsh takes the reins

George Tidmarsh, the FDA's top drug regulator, will temporarily take over at the biologics center in Prasad's absence, according to yet another story by Lizzy.

Tidmarsh joined the FDA last week as director of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. He is a former biotech executive and physician who also holds an adjunct position at Stanford. Read more.

biosecurity

The quits keep on coming

The White House's top pandemic preparedness official has resigned, writes Katherine Eban, leaving the administration's two biosecurity offices leaderless and with one part-time staffer between them.

Gerald Parker had been reported to be the head of the Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy. But Parker was never actually appointed the formal head of that office, and the White House didn't correct earlier reports.

A White House spokesperson said thousands of employees in the administration work on biosecurity risks. Read more about why others think the administration has dropped its guard on pandemic preparedness and biosecurity.

research funding

NIH plans to cut more grants

The NIH plans to award far fewer grants for the remaining two months of the fiscal year, in some cases more than halving awards compared to last year, Angus Chen, Megan Molteni, and Anil Oza report.

The National Cancer Institute, for example, expects to fund 4% of grant applications, down from 9%. The policy will affect the bulk of federal funding for universities and medical centers, often described as the "basic building blocks" of scientific research.

But cracks are showing within the Republican Party over NIH funding. Read more.

data sharing

Making health tech 'Great Again'

More than 60 health tech companies pledged to make health data-sharing easier and to build apps for patients to access and act on their health data, Mario Aguilar and Brittany report.

CMS orchestrated that pledge, and CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz called the agreement a "paradigm shift in the U.S. health care system."

Those who signed the pledge include Amazon, Apple, Google, OpenAI, Epic, Microsoft, CVS Health, and UnitedHealth Group.

food research

Kevin Hall, uncensored

Sarah Todd did a Q&A with the leading U.S. authority on the science of ultra-processed foods.

Kevin Hall, who has a book titled "Food Intelligence" coming out, spoke candidly about why he thinks MAHA leaders are not serious about studying ultra-processed food, his aborted return to the NIH, and the processed food that he eats.

Read the interview here.

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