Steven J. Hatfill, a biosecurity expert who has publicly backed Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decision to cancel funding for mRNA vaccine research, was fired over the weekend from his job as a senior adviser at the Department of Health and Human Services, he and a senior department official said.
The official said Dr. Hatfill was let go because he had misrepresented himself as the “chief medical officer” for the assistant secretary for preparedness and response and was “not coordinating policy-making with leadership.”
In a brief telephone interview, Dr. Hatfill said that was not true. He said he was ousted as part of “a coup to overthrow Mr. Kennedy” that he claimed was being organized by Matt Buckham, Mr. Kennedy’s chief of staff, but did not explain why his ouster was evidence of the effort. Dr. Hatfill said Mr. Buckham had told him that the secretary “wants to go in a different direction” and asked him to resign, but he refused and said the department would have to fire him instead.
Dr. Hatfill said the health department printed business cards for him that identified him as a senior adviser and chief medical officer. His spokesman texted a reporter an image of the business card that showed the title. Mr. Buckham could not immediately be reached for comment, but the health department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to address a personnel matter, said that “firing a staff member for cause does not add up to a coup.”
The move was reported earlier by Bloomberg.
Dr. Hatfill, a onetime Army biodefense researcher, has long been a contentious figure. In a recent appearance on Stephen Bannon’s podcast, he asserted without evidence that the mRNA Covid shots “were more dangerous than it was to contract Covid-19 and be hospitalized with it.” He also said the “accumulated data” justified Mr. Kennedy’s decision to cancel $500 million in contracts for mRNA vaccine research and development.
Dr. Hatfill catapulted into the national spotlight in 2002, when F.B.I. agents dressed in biohazard suits searched his apartment as part of their investigation into the deadly anthrax attacks that had terrified the nation the previous year. Dr. Hatfill said he was wrongly targeted, and the Justice Department agreed in 2008 to to pay him a $4.6 million settlement.
During the coronavirus pandemic, Dr. Hatfill advocated the use of hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malaria drug that President Trump embraced as a Covid treatment, despite a lack of evidence.
Sheryl Gay Stolberg covers health policy for The Times from Washington. A former congressional and White House correspondent, she focuses on the intersection of health policy and politics.
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