RFK Jr.’s FDA is in Meltdown Mode

The mission undertaken by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s mission to “Make America Healthy Again” is not going well. The new “health czar” continues to oversee the collapse of America’s most important health agencies – a development that clearly does not bode well for Americans or their health. Case in point: This weekend, the food and Drug Administration was thrown into disarray after a top drug regulator resigned from his position.

George Tidmarsh was previously head of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. However, a lawsuit filed Sunday by Aurinia Pharmaceuticals, a Canadian pharmaceutical company, alleged misconduct on Tidmarsh’s part, alleging that he sent its stock down by criticizing one of its drugs on LinkedIn, ABC previously reported. In a LinkedIn post, Tidmarsh appeared to criticize Voxporin, an Aurenia drug designed to treat lupus nephritis, an autoimmune disease. He reportedly wrote that voclosporin “has not been shown to provide a direct clinical benefit to patients” (the lawsuit claims these were “false and defamatory statements”). He later deleted the post, though the lawsuit claims Aurinia’s stock fell 20 percent as a result of the comments, ABC wrote.

Additionally, the lawsuit alleges that Tidmarsh launched a retaliation campaign of sorts against the company’s chairman, Kevin Tang. “Over the next six years, Dr. Tidmarsh repeatedly threatened that he would retaliate against Mr. Tang,” the lawsuit says, according to ABC. The New York Times added that the lawsuit claims Tidmarsh attempted to “blackmail” Tang, who was described as a “former business partner” of Tidmarsh. In an interview with the newspaper, Tidmarsh denied the allegations.

Tidmarsh has also previously been criticized because, under his leadership, the FDA has moved away from expert review of new drugs, CBS previously reported. Tidmarsh was quoted as saying that New Drug Advisory Committee meetings represent “a tremendous amount of work for the company and for the FDA. We want to use this work and our time to focus on the big questions.”

However, with Tidmarsh’s dramatic exit, it leaves the FDA in a state of flux. In text messages shared with Axios, FDA employees expressed dismay at the chaos engulfing the agency. These text messages, although not shared directly with readers, were described by the agency as showing “people upset by the unrest and increasingly motivated to leave the agency — a threat exacerbated by the number of experienced career officials who have already left.” Axios also spoke with former FDA employees and found much the same: “I don’t know that I’ve talked to anyone that happy there,” one former employee told the outlet.

Gizmodo has reached out to HHS and FDA for comment. We also sent a direct message to Mr Tidmarsh and reached out to Aurinia Pharmaceuticals. Before his resignation, Tidmarsh was placed on administrative leave “after notifying the Office of General Counsel and the Office of Inspector General of serious concerns about his personal conduct,” an FDA spokesperson told the Times.

Although he did not remain in office for long, Kennedy’s reign as America’s health czar was marked by great turmoil and chaos within the Department of Health and Human Services. A number of agencies have experienced significant turnover and layoffs. Earlier this year, the Department of Health and Human Services fired thousands of employees, and more recently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention saw a number of top officials resign in protest of Kennedy’s policies. Kennedy also fired all members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Vaccine Advisory Committee. Last month, in an unprecedented move, six former US surgeons general wrote an op-ed in which they described Kennedy as a “profound, immediate and unprecedented threat” to Americans’ health and suggested he step down.