A senior adviser at the Department of Health and Human Services who backed Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr.’s decision to cancel funds for mRNA vaccine research has been ousted from the department.
Steven Hatfill, a controversial virologist who served as an adviser to President Donald Trump on the coronavirus pandemic during his first term, was fired over the weekend.
He told The New York Times in a brief interview on his departure that he was let go as part of a ”coup to overthrow Mr. Kennedy,” which he blamed on Kennedy’s chief of staff, Matt Buckham.
According to Hatfill, Buckham told him that Kennedy wanted to go in a different direction.
However, an official told the Times that he was fired because he had misrepresented himself as “chief medical officer” for the assistant secretary for preparedness and was “not coordinating policy-making with leadership.”
A spokesperson for HHS confirmed to the Daily Beast that he had been terminated for cause but did not go into detail.
Hatfill is no stranger to controversy and his joining the second Trump administration at HHS did not go unnoticed.
During the coronavirus pandemic, Hatfill advocated for the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat coronavirus despite many researchers warning about the lack of evidence to support it.
The biosecurity adviser joined HHS in May as a special adviser to the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR), which is a small agency responsible for preparing the country for disasters such as a pandemic or biological attack.
Over the summer, Hatfill appeared on the show of right-wing MAGA podcaster Steve Bannon, where he claimed the mRNA vaccines caused “biochemical havoc” in cells.
It came just days after the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), a research unit of ASPR, said it would wind down its mRNA COVID vaccine development activities.
Hatfill previously gained national attention in 2002 when his home was repeatedly raided by the FBI as a “person of interest” in the 2001 anthrax attacks that killed five people.
He ended up suing the Justice Department, which was eventually settled for $4.6 million in June 2008. Months later, He was formally exonerated in the anthrax mailings.
The post Anti-Vax Health Official Axed in ‘Coup to Overthrow’ RFK Jr. appeared first on The Daily Beast.
