BioCentury
ARTICLE | Politics, Policy & Law

Politics intrudes into Trump administration’s regulation of vaccines

FDA, HHS allow political appointees to make regulatory decisions about Novavax’s COVID vaccine based on unscientific rationales

April 28, 2025 11:42 PM UTC

The Trump administration’s ambiguous and scientifically unsupported statements regarding the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine this weekend represent an unprecedented degree of political interference in medical product regulation, former FDA officials and public health experts told BioCentury.

The confusion and delays surrounding the regulatory review of the Novavax vaccine provide a “case study in how missteps at the political level can undermine public health goals,” Phil Krause and Luciana Borio wrote in a commentary published Monday by BioCentury...