Copyright Anchorage Daily News
Steven J. Hatfill, a virologist who criticized mRNA vaccines and pushed hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for the coronavirus during the pandemic, said he has been asked to resign from a senior role at the federal health agency charged with preparing for disasters such as pandemics and biological attacks. Hatfill joined Health and Human Services in May and said he was given the title of chief medical officer of the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response. Hatfill said that on Saturday, Matt Buckham, chief of staff for the agency, told him that Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had requested his resignation. “He stated that they were taking ASPR in a different direction. I refused to resign and asked to speak to the Secretary directly,” Hatfill said in a prepared statement. “It appears that the Secretary is being sequestered, and HHS is in a free fall.” An administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because it is a personnel matter, said Hatfill was terminated for cause. Hatfill said in a statement that he had not yet been formally terminated. Hatfill’s ouster was first reported by Bloomberg. Hatfill, who declined an interview request, was part of a team that assembled a 181-page document that the administration cited this summer as data to support the decision to end nearly two dozen mRNA-related vaccine projects, worth $500 million. Kennedy said in a statement at the time that the decision was being made because the shots “fail to protect effectively against upper respiratory infections like COVID and flu.” Numerous studies have showed the benefits of the covid vaccines in preventing severe illness. Hatfill subsequently went on Stephen K. Bannon’s “War Room” podcast and said that it was “more dangerous to take a vaccine than it was to contract covid-19 and be hospitalized with it.” The vaccines’ safety was studied in initial trials, and adverse events are tracked by vaccine safety monitoring programs. He added: “The vaccines have injured hundreds of thousands and we’re not really sure how many have been killed by it, but a significant amount.” Hatfill served as a White House adviser during President Donald Trump’s first term, advocating the use of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for covid infections, despite a lack of scientific evidence that led regulators to revoke emergency approval of the drug in 2020. Previously, Hatfill was investigated for years by the Justice Department as a “person of interest” in the 2001 anthrax attacks, when letters containing anthrax spores were mailed and killed five people and sickened 17. Hatfill was formally exonerated in 2008, the same year the government paid him $4.6 million to settle his lawsuit in the case.
