When Science Gets Fired
Peter Marks’ ouster shows how America is trading expertise for ideology—right in the middle of a measles outbreak.
If you want a dystopian metaphor for America in 2025, here it is: A measles outbreak is sweeping the country, and the nation’s top vaccine expert just got fired—because the new Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., decided he prefers vibes over virology.
Peter Marks, the soft-spoken yet formidable head of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research—basically, the guy who made sure our vaccines actually work—submitted a scorched-earth resignation letter last week. In it, he accused RFK Jr. of preferring “subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies” over “truth and transparency.” Translation: we’ve officially entered the Fox Mulder phase of public health. The truth is out there—just no longer welcome at the FDA.
And if you think this is just about a personnel change, think again. This is a hostile takeover of American science.
From Warp Speed to Reverse Gear
Let’s rewind. Peter Marks isn’t some faceless bureaucrat. He was a key architect of Operation Warp Speed, the moonshot vaccine effort that pulled America out of the pandemic’s darkest days. Under his guidance, the FDA retained credibility amid enormous political pressure. His resignation is the public-health equivalent of your best pilot ejecting mid-flight because the new co-pilot thinks clouds are a hoax.
And what does RFK Jr.—the man now helming the nation’s health apparatus—bring to the table? A well-documented history of anti-vaccine activism, conspiracy theories linking vaccines to autism (debunked repeatedly), and an ego large enough to make him abandon an independent presidential campaign only to accept a cabinet post from the very man he once ran against.
This isn’t about science anymore. This is about ideology. More specifically: a paranoid, populist ideology that sees scientific consensus as elitism, expertise as arrogance, and measles as a lifestyle choice.
The Cult of Contrarianism
RFK Jr.’s appointment represents something deeper than vaccine skepticism. It’s part of a broader war on institutions—a gutting of expertise in the name of “restoring trust,” which increasingly means trusting only people who confirm your beliefs.
Peter Marks is out, and Sherri Tenpenny—the doctor whose license was suspended for spreading COVID misinformation—is tweeting triumphantly about how “truth doesn’t need force.” Never mind that her idea of truth includes blaming vaccines for 5G mind control and demonic possession. (Yes, really.)
This is not an intellectual disagreement. It’s a faith-based rejection of the entire premise that facts exist outside of personal belief. It’s science versus scientism—where the latter isn’t a commitment to data, but a cosplay of authority in a lab coat.
A Republic of the Unvaccinated
Let’s put it bluntly: we are running an advanced industrial nation with 330 million people using the epistemological equivalent of WebMD comments and YouTube videos. And now, the guy running the country’s health policy has spent two decades undermining public confidence in the very tools that made polio, smallpox, and diphtheria distant memories.
We’re already seeing the consequences. Measles is back. Not metaphorically—literally. Texas and New Mexico are the new epicenters, and children are dying of a disease that was virtually eliminated in the U.S. by the year 2000. The CDC has linked almost all new cases to people who are unvaccinated or whose status is unknown. But sure, the real problem is Peter Marks’ “narrative control.”
This isn’t draining the swamp. It’s flooding the country with sewage.
The Big Philosophical Question
What does it say about a society when the people tasked with protecting it from disease are fired for believing in science?
The ousting of Peter Marks is not just a professional casualty—it’s a litmus test for how much institutional decay we’re willing to tolerate. We have reached a point where conspiracy is not just tolerated at the top levels of government—it is the governing framework.
We often ask: how did Rome fall? The better question might be: what happens when a nation that once led the world in innovation decides that expertise is suspect and evidence is elitist?
RFK Jr. once claimed that vaccines are a form of mass mind control. Ironically, he might be right about the control part—just not in the way he intended.
Final Dose
America is sick. Not just with measles, but with epistemic rot. We’ve replaced technocrats with televangelists, and regulators with influencers. In this new regime, if science doesn’t flatter your worldview, you fire it.
Peter Marks’ resignation is not just a staffing change. It’s a symptom of a deeper illness: a nation where truth is negotiable, but ideology is mandatory.
And if we’re not careful, the next thing to go viral won’t be a tweet—but another preventable epidemic.
That’s the point.