Oct. 28 (UPI) — Dr. Steven J. Hatfill, a biosecurity expert who supported Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decision to cancel funding for mRNA vaccine research, has been fired.
He had been a senior adviser at HHS.
A senior department official told The New York Times that Hatfill was ousted because he had misrepresented himself as the “chief medical officer” for the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response and was “not coordinating policy-making with leadership.”
But Hatfill told The Times that it wasn’t true. He said his firing was part of “a coup to overthrow Mr. Kennedy” by Kennedy’s chief of staff Matt Buckham. He didn’t explain that allegation to The Times.
He said Kennedy and Buckham wanted Hatfill to resign, but he refused and was fired.
“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 statement. “It appears that the Secretary is being sequestered, and HHS is in a free fall.”
Hatfill has criticized mRNA vaccines and pushed hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19 during the pandemic.
He said on Stephen K. Bannon’s War Room podcast that it was “more dangerous to take a vaccine than it was to contract COVID-19 and be hospitalized with it.”
“The vaccines have injured hundreds of thousands and we’re not really sure how many have been killed by it, but a significant amount,” he said.
Hatfill was also investigated by the Department of Justice as a person of interest in the 2001 anthrax attacks. He was exonerated in 2008.
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