”People Will Pay”: Anti-Vax Voices Rage At Prasad Ouster
There’s trouble in MAHA world.
Written By: Walker Bragman
Written: Aug 05, 2025
Anti-vaxxers are fuming in the wake of the Food and Drug Administration’s ouster of Vinay Prasad, who briefly served as director of its Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research as well as its chief medical and science officer.
Prasad, a well-known public health contrarian with a history of casting doubt on vaccines and other pandemic control measures, joined the agency in May and rose quickly to become the top deputy of his ally Commissioner Marty Makary. But last week, Prasad abruptly resigned.
Prasad’s exit—reportedly driven by Donald Trump—came amid a dispute between his department and biotech company Sarepta over its new treatment for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, Elevidys, and was preceded by a blitz of negative op-eds in right-wing media outlets accusing him of working to undermine the president’s agenda. Those began with a July 20 piece by pro-Trump activist and conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer accusing him of being a “leftist saboteur." Within short order, RealClear Health and the Wall Street Journal opinion section had pieces attacking Prasad as a progressive. The latter branded him “a Bernie Sanders acolyte in MAHA drag.” Rick Santorum also got involved as did Trump ally Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson.
As Important Context noted in our coverage of Prasad’s ouster last week, the episode highlighted a fault line inside the Make America Healthy Again movement between Trump’s laissez-faire regulatory agenda and Kennedy’s long history of criticizing the pharmaceutical industry for allegedly harming Americans.
Now, in the wake of the FDA shakeup, anti-vaccine voices have been venting frustrations over loss of their ally inside the critical agency.
“This is what happens to people who try to protect the public from dangerous drugs,” tweeted tech entrepreneur-turned-anti-vax activist Steve Kirsch, sharing a story about Prasad’s departure.
“From what I understand, we will not like his replacement,” wrote Mary Talley Bowden, an ivermectin-promoting physician and fellow at the pro-MAHA Independent Medical Alliance who has been critical of the administration for not taking a harder line against vaccines.
Even Kennedy’s former inner circle have taken notice. Another voice weighing in on the subject was Mary Holland, president of Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine dark money group Kennedy founded, which is now suing HHS and the secretary for not setting up a vaccine safety task force.
In a Rumble interview with anti-vax, post-left comedian Jimmy Dore, who has previously been critical of Prasad over his fact checks of Kennedy, Holland offered sharp criticism of Loomer’s attacks on the former official. She dubbed them “disturbing,” explaining, “I don’t care who these people vote for—what I care about is, are they committed to honest science? Are they into transparency? Are they going to put people ahead of pharmaceutical profits?”
Holland was only mildly critical of the ouster, however. While she did say that she did not think “the turbulence” was helpful to the FDA or Kennedy, she also appeared to try and tamp down frustrations, calling Prasad’s brief tenure at the agency “mixed” and pushing to move beyond the controversy of his exit.
”You know, Prasad did just can a particular drug, Sareptra [sic], and once he’s gone now, they’ve recommenced the shipping, and apparently some of the stock prices of some of the biotech companies have gone up since his departure,” she explained, referring to the Elevidys controversy. “So it’s hard to read those tea leaves of exactly what went down—I don’t think it matters. What matters is to let’s get on with this program to make America healthy again.”
Dore’s video with Holland was titled, “Here’s The REAL REASON Laura Loomer Drove Dr. Vinay Prasad Out Of FDA!” The image for the video featured the words “Forced Out By Big Pharma.” During the interview, the host said he was “suspect” of Loomer’s motives, noted Santorum had ties to Sarepta, and asked Holland if she agreed with his assessment of the situation that the company had brought about Prasad’s exit. She replied, “I think you’re probably right.”
Still, when Dore asked why Kennedy would “roll over so easily,” Holland pushed back insisting, “I don’t think we know the whole story.”
”I don’t think we know what the pressures were,” she said. “And we don’t know that Kennedy rolled over either. And we don’t know who he may have as his next appointee.”
Others were less sanguine on the matter of Prasad’s unceremonious departure from the FDA. The founder of the right-wing dark money group American Majority, Ned Ryun, who has promoted anti-vax talking points about the COVID vaccines, promised vengeance.
“Vinay Prasad is the type of doctor we want at the FDA, the kind that can restore trust,” Ryun wrote. “But for questioning the approval of Sarepta Therapeutics highly questionable gene therapy, he was taken out by hired guns like Laura Loomer. It’s sickening and gross and unconscionable. But I can assure you, people will pay for this because now you’ve royally pissed me off.”
Ryun, who has previously questioned whether multiple mRNA vaccine doses weaken the immune system, said the vaccines “hardly work” and “might not be approvable,” called them “experimental,” and compared them to eugenics, took aim at Loomer. In a tweet, he called her “completely nuts” and accused her of taking money from Sarepta for her anti-Prasad advocacy.
”The fact of the matter is you got funded by Sarepta Therapeutics to take Vinay out; probably thru a middle man for deniability but still pharma money funding it all,” he wrote. “The reason I find this and you so loathsome is that this behavior is the antithesis of the MAGA and MAHA movements.”