Three weeks after a leading scientist at the National Institutes of Health filed a whistle-blower complaint against the Trump administration, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy fired her, according to her lawyer and a copy of the termination letter.
Her dismissal was the latest in a series of steps the Trump administration has taken against government scientists and environmental experts after they warned that administration policies were endangering public health and safety.
That scientist, Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, who had directed the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases before being demoted in March, was one of several senior N.I.H. officials who said that their tenures at the agency had ended in recent days.
Dr. Eliseo Pérez-Stable, who had directed the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, told the publication Science that he received a letter from the N.I.H. director, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, stating that his appointment was ending this week.
And Dr. Diana Bianchi, who had directed the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, indicated on social media that her tenure at the N.I.H. had ended, too.
Those scientists had all been in limbo since being placed on administrative leave in the spring. Dr. Marrazzo said in her complaint last month that the N.I.H. had placed her on administrative leave after she objected to Trump administration actions that she said had endangered research subjects, defied court orders and undermined vaccine research.
Dr. Marrazzo said on Thursday that she received notice of her firing from Mr. Kennedy this week, in a letter dated Sept. 26.
The health secretary wrote that he had the authority to appoint directors of N.I.H. institutes. “Accordingly,” Mr. Kennedy went on, “in my capacity as secretary, I have decided to terminate your appointment as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease.”
The letter did not elaborate, and Dr. Marrazzo said she was given no further explanation. A spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services declined to comment. The N.I.H. labeled the whistle-blower allegations as “false.”
Debra S. Katz, a lawyer for Dr. Marrazzo, said in a statement that the firing was retaliatory.
“The Trump Administration terminated Dr. Marrazzo for her advocacy on behalf of critical health research and for her support of the overwhelming body of evidence that shows vaccines are safe and effective,” Ms. Katz said.
The firing of the federal government’s onetime chief of infectious disease research further thinned the ranks of vaccine and infectious disease scientists working under President Trump.
Several senior officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including the directors of centers that managed emerging diseases, respiratory illnesses and vaccine recommendations, resigned in late August after its director, Susan Monarez, was dismissed.
The Trump administration has also clamped down on government scientists and environmental experts who have raised alarms in recent months about new policies. The Environmental Protection Agency and the Federal Emergency Management Agency each suspended employees for criticizing the Trump administration.
The N.I.H. director, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, has pledged to welcome conflicting views, describing dissent in his confirmation hearing as “the very essence of science.”
But that agency, too, retaliated against Dr. Marrazzo for “protected whistle-blower activity,” Ms. Katz said.
Dr. Marrazzo filed her whistle-blower complaint last month alongside Dr. Kathleen Neuzil, then the director of the N.I.H.’s Fogarty International Center, which supports global health research.
Dr. Neuzil, too, said in the complaint that she had been removed from her role and placed on involuntary administrative leave after objecting to what she described as dangerous and unscientific views about vaccines taking hold in the upper echelons of the N.I.H. The agency had long been one of the world’s leading engines of vaccine research.
Shortly before filing the whistle-blower complaint, Dr. Neuzil resigned in what she said was a departure forced by the agency’s decision to not give her any work. She was recently hired as the director of polio eradication efforts at the Gates Foundation.
In response to the whistle-blower complaint last month, the Health Department dismissed the allegations by Dr. Marrazzo and Dr. Neuzil that the administration’s N.I.H. policies were “unscientific.”
“Assertions that reprioritization, reallocation, or cancellation of certain grants are ‘anti-science’ misrepresent N.I.H.’s progress and often echo the grievances of former staff,” Andrew Nixon, a Health Department spokesman, said.
Dr. Marrazzo was left with “no real avenues of recourse” in the aftermath of her firing, given that the Trump administration had “eviscerated” the government agency that protects whistle-blowers, Ms. Katz said.
In a statement, Dr. Marrazzo urged Congress to act.
“My termination, unfortunately, shows that the leaders of H.H.S. and the National Institutes of Health do not share my commitment to scientific integrity and public health,” Dr. Marrazzo said. “Congress must act to protect scientific research from those who would serve political interests first.”
Benjamin Mueller reports on health and medicine. He was previously a U.K. correspondent in London and a police reporter in New York.
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