For years, Americans have been told to “trust the experts.” But what happens when those same experts cannot trust each other?
The agency responsible for food safety, drug approvals, and the health of 330 million Americans has collapsed into infighting, ego battles, and corruption.
Under Commissioner Marty Makary, the FDA has moved from quiet dysfunction to full-blown crisis. Instead of protecting the public, agency leadership has focused on protecting turf, silencing dissent, and pushing out experienced staff.
The absence of transparency has given way to obfuscation, while stability has been replaced by chaos.
The FDA has become a battlefield for internal power struggles — most evident in the collapse of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER). Under Dr. Vinay Prasad, CBER has ejected at least seven senior leaders, watched hundreds of veteran staff flee, and blocked transfers in an attempt to prevent further damage.
CBER workers, who oversee vaccines, biologics, blood safety, and gene therapies, are burned out, ignored, and dismissed. When experts leave, public health deteriorates.
Instead of stepping in early, Commissioner Makary allowed the turmoil to grow. He then elevated George Tidmarsh, who was later forced out after federal ethics officials investigated allegations he abused his FDA position to settle a personal score.
After Tidmarsh’s removal, Makary scrambled to fill the leadership vacuum at CDER (the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research). He begged longtime FDA veteran Dr. Richard Pazdur to take the role. When Pazdur refused, Makary’s staff sent an agency-wide email pleading for volunteers.
The level of desperation should terrify anyone concerned about the integrity of the drug-approval process.
Pazdur ultimately accepted but inherited a hollowed-out agency: more than a thousand staff have left, bitter turf clashes with CBER persist, directives from Makary’s office outpace staffing capacity, and morale is at historic lows.
Pazdur’s message to employees — urging unity, humility, and open communication — reads as a quiet indictment of the toxic culture fostered by current leadership.
America cannot afford an FDA operating like a fumbling political campaign. The agency approves cancer drugs, monitors food safety, regulates medical devices, and oversees biologics. When leadership is consumed by infighting, corruption scandals, and cover-ups, every American becomes less safe.
From the MAHA perspective — transparency in science, accountability in leadership, and honesty in public health — the solution is clear: end incompetence and lack of integrity; end bureaucratic rot; and return the FDA to its core mission: protecting Americans, not Washington insiders.
If Commissioner Makary cannot deliver stability, integrity, and competence, he should step aside for someone who can.
When bureaucrats wage war against one another, the casualties are American families.
