Rupert Murdoch’s flagship newspaper has issued a strong warning against plans by the man it calls the “FDA’s Grim Reaper” to kill off life-saving cancer treatments and research.
“It’s a scandal that will cost many lives,” The Wall Street Journal editorial board writes of how Food and Drug Administration biologics chief Dr. Vinay Prasad is reportedly planning on “killing life-saving experimental cancer treatments and undercutting biotech innovation.”
Prasad, like his boss Robert F Kennedy Jr., is a vaccine skeptic and rose to prominence for repeated attacks on “the spread of new technologies and therapies without clear evidence that they work.” He once compared COVID-19 measures to the advent of the Third Reich.
Appointed in May, Prasad briefly stepped down after attempting to suspend shipments of an otherwise approved treatment for muscular dystrophy.
The controversy was deepened by ideological attacks online from far-right activist and conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, who accused Prasad of being insufficiently aligned with the MAGA agenda on account of supposedly once having used “voodoo” against President Donald Trump.
Less than two weeks later, Kennedy’s Department of Health and Human Services announced Prasad would be returned to his post running the FDA’s biologics division in defiance of “fake news” about his suitability for the job and in alignment with the second Trump administration’s agenda.
According to the WSJ’s editorial published late Monday, the “Bernie Sanders acolyte” is back with a vengeance, launching a new campaign to block an immunotherapy treatment manufactured by biotech company Replimune Group for patients with advanced melanoma.
“Career FDA staff supported the RP1 therapy for approval, as did oncologists who described the trial results as unprecedented,” the editorial board wrote of the drug’s effectiveness. “Tumors shrank in nearly all patients, and one-third went into remission. One in six saw their tumors vanish.”
The WSJ adds that under Prasad’s tenure, the FDA has now “rejected the treatment and changed the standard for approval, quibbling that its trial lacked a placebo group,” even as “oncologists from around the world [have] urged the FDA to reconsider.” The experts argue that using control groups in terminal patients would be unethical.
“This is a part of Mr Kennedy’s anti-pharma agenda, and Dr. Prasad is his point of the spear,” the paper went on. “The biggest danger to public health these days is regulators like Dr. Prasad who loathe drug makers more than they care about helping patients.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to the Department of Health and Human Services and the FDA for comment on this story.
