A dozen former FDA leaders lambast claims by the agency’s current vaccine chief

By LAURAN NEERGAARD and LAURA UNGAR

WASHINGTON (AP) — A dozen prior leaders of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration — appointed by Republicans and Democrats alike — issued a scathing denunciation of new FDA assertions casting doubt on vaccine safety.

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The former officials say the agency’s plans to revamp how life-saving vaccines for flu, COVID-19 and other respiratory diseases are handled — outlined in an internal FDA memo last week — would “disadvantage the people the FDA exists to protect, including millions of Americans at high risk from serious infections.”

“The proposed new directives are not small adjustments or coherent policy updates. They represent a major shift in the FDA’s understanding of its job,” the officials, former FDA commissioners and acting commissi