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Trump Drove Firing of FDA Official
President Donald Trump overruled his health secretary and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) chief on Tuesday, and ordered the removal of the government’s top vaccine regulator, four people with knowledge of the decision told POLITICO.
The four, granted anonymity to speak about the details of Trump’s decision, said Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and FDA Commissioner Marty Makary opposed dismissing Vinay Prasad, who had been on the job three months and had recently come under attack by right-wing provocateur Laura Loomer.
“I worry now RFK will get hardcore anti-vaxxers in there,” one of the four said.
Prasad could not be reached for comment. The White House did not respond to a request for comment. A close Trump ally, Loomer’s efforts against Prasad began in earnest on July 20 when she wrote on her website that Prasad, a hematologist-oncologist, was a “progressive leftist saboteur undermining President Trump’s FDA.”
Within days, she and other conservative voices — including former GOP Sen. Rick Santorum and The Wall Street Journal editorial board — slammed Prasad’s stewardship of rare disease therapies under his center’s purview, arguing his approach threatened patient choice.
These Companies Avoided Clean-Air Rules. It Took a Single Email.
Sites including at least 15 coal plants sought exemptions from environmental rules using a new Trump administration system to fast-track requests, documents show.
In March, the Trump administration created a novel way for companies to potentially avoid complying with environmental rules: Simply send an email to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and request an exemption.
In response, representatives of at least 15 coal-burning power plants, four steel mills, four chemical facilities and two mines wrote emails to the EPA this spring, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times. All 15 coal plants were ultimately exempted from requirements to curb several hazardous air pollutants, including mercury, a neurotoxin that can cause developmental problems in infants and children.
All four chemical facilities were exempted from restrictions on other harmful air pollutants, including ethylene oxide, a gas linked to several types of cancer.
Those email exemptions were part of a broader wave of more than 100 granted so far by the Trump administration to facilities across the country, including oil refineries and sites that process a type of iron ore. The exemptions apply to rules that were set to take effect in the coming years.
‘Extinction-Level’: MAHA Warns Pesticide Immunity Provision Could Mirror Anger-Inducing Bill From 1980s
Critics are sounding the alarm over a provision in a House appropriations bill they say could shield pesticide manufacturers from legal liability — drawing comparisons to the 1986 law that granted similar protections to vaccine makers.
The rule, tucked into Section 453 of the House’s Fiscal Year 2026 Interior and Environment Appropriations Act, has sparked backlash from supporters of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement. They argue it could mirror the fallout of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, which created a no-fault system protecting vaccine producers from injury lawsuits.
“If you don’t like what happened with vaccine indemnification, you’re really not gonna like what happens with pesticide and herbicide indemnification,” Dr. Robert Malone, a prominent and longtime critic of COVID-19 vaccine mandates, said in a July 24 video.
With AI Plan, Trump Keeps Chipping Away at a Foundational Environmental Law
When President Donald Trump rolled out a plan to boost artificial intelligence and data centers, a key goal was wiping away barriers to rapid growth. And that meant taking aim at the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) — a 55-year-old, bedrock law aimed at protecting the environment through a process that requires agencies to consider a project’s possible impacts and allows the public to be heard before a project is approved.
Data centers, demanding vast amounts of energy and water, have aroused strong opposition in some communities. The AI Action Plan Trump announced last week would seek to sweep aside NEPA, as it’s commonly known, to streamline environmental reviews and permitting for data centers and related infrastructure.
Republicans and business interests have long criticized NEPA for what they see as unreasonable slowing of development, and Trump’s plan would give “categorical exclusions” to data centers for “maximum efficiency” in permitting.
