Prasad was hired by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a long-time anti-vaccine activist, who has been working to remake U.S. vaccine policy and has called for placebo-based trials of vaccines in the past. Many scientists say it is not typically possible to run such trials for ethical reasons.

Concern about that link, particularly relating to teenage boys and young men, has been a key argument against administering mRNA-based COVID vaccines in children.

Vinay Prasad, a top FDA official, blamed COVID shots for playing a role in the deaths of 10 children in a memo he sent to agency staff.

The agency’s top vaccine regulator proposed broad changes, claiming that a new review linked 10 children’s deaths to the Covid vaccine. But public health experts questioned the findings, wanting to examine the data.

An effort to include autism cases could bankrupt the program. The secretary’s anti-vaccine allies prefer it collapse.