Shortly before he was forced to resign, the nation’s top vaccine regulator says he refused to grant Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s team unrestricted access to a tightly held vaccine safety database, fearing that the information might be manipulated or even deleted.

In an interview with the Associated Press, former Food and Drug Administration vaccine chief Dr. Peter Marks discussed his efforts to “make nice” with Kennedy and address his longstanding concerns about vaccine safety, including by developing a “vaccine transparency action plan.”

Marks agreed to give Kennedy’s associates the ability to read thousands of reports of potential vaccine-related issues sent to the government’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS. But he would not allow them to directly edit the data.

“Why wouldn’t we? Because frankly we don’t trust (them),” he said, using a profanity. “They’d write over it or erase the whole database.”

Deadly outbreak

Marks spoke to the AP on Sunday, after officials in Texas confirmed the nation’s second measles-related death in an unvaccinated child this year. Marks attributed the death to the tepid response from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which again encouraged the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine on Sunday but has also promoted claims about vitamin A supplements.

During his Senate confirmation hearings, Kennedy told lawmakers he is not “antivaccine.” But since taking office, he’s promised to “investigate” children’s shots, and agencies under his watch have terminated vaccine-related research, canceled meetings of vaccine advisers and are poised to reinvestigate ties between vaccines and autism — a link debunked long ago.

Since being sworn in, “Mr. Kennedy has increased the pace by which he intends to minimize the use of vaccines in this country,” Marks said.

An HHS spokesperson said Kennedy has advocated for vaccination multiple times since becoming health secretary and pointed to a social media post Sunday in which he called the vaccine “the most effective way to prevent the spread of measles.” But hours later, Kennedy also praised “extraordinary healers” in the Mennonite community who he said were using a drug combination to treat measles. Neither of the drugs has been shown to directly treat the disease, which is a viral infection.

Marks is highly regarded by former FDA leaders and biotech industry executives, but his time at the agency was not without controversy. During the COVID-19 pandemic he was alternately criticized for being too slow — under Trump— and too fast — under Biden— to authorize new vaccines and boosters.

Marks says he “tried everything” to work with Kennedy. At the center of that effort was a plan to increase publicly available information about vaccine ingredients, safety and side effects.

Marks and his team had hoped to kick off the initiative with a two-day public “listening session,” followed by an expert report written by an independent organization, such as the National Academies of Sciences.

Kennedy is ‘walled off’

Marks said he never spoke directly with Kennedy, whom he described as “walled off” from FDA officials.

On the day he was forced out of his post, Marks said he was summoned to a meeting at HHS headquarters.

Two senior HHS officials greeted him and recalled Marks’ work during the COVID-19 pandemic; he had coined the name and developed the concept for “Operation Warp Speed,” which rapidly accelerated the development of vaccines and therapies to treat the virus.

After an awkward silence, Marks said, one of the officials told him: “Look, he wants you gone.” According to Marks, it was an obvious reference to Kennedy.

“It was pretty clear that either I was going to resign, or they were going to fire me,” Marks said. He submitted his resignation later that day, citing Kennedy’s support for “misinformation and lies” about vaccines.

The HHS spokesperson said Kennedy is “installing scientists committed to reversing the chronic disease crisis,” and that Marks was a “rubber stamp” for the drug industry.