Jeanne Marrazzo, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), filed suit in federal court on Tuesday alleging that Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., National Institutes of Health (NIH) director Jay Bhattacharya, principal deputy director of NIAID Matthew Memoli, and the NIH violated her constitutional rights and illegally terminated her employment after she “blew the whistle on actions that jeopardized public health and violated federal law.”
Kennedy fired Marrazzo in October after she filed a whistleblower complaint.
She was put on indefinite leave in March and filed a whistleblower complaint with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel in September, alleging illegal retaliation, according to CBS News.
Marrazzo previously served as the director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She was a COVID alarmist who had pro-masking beliefs.
Marrazzo alleges in the lawsuit that Secretary Kennedy fired her for public warnings she made about the serious risks posed by the Trump administration’s hostile approach to vaccines and the termination of critical scientific research.
“We are filing suit in federal court today to seek justice for Dr. Marrazzo and hold the Trump Administration accountable for illegally putting politics and its anti-vaccine, agenda over public health and safety,” said Debra S. Katz, Lisa J. Banks and Abbe D. Lowell, counsel for Marrazzo. “Dr. Marrazzo, an internationally recognized scientist and medical researcher, courageously came forward with evidence of HHS and NIH leadership endangering the public health and wasting billions of dollars. Her only recourse for justice is the federal courts, as the Trump Administration’s assault on whistleblower protections has created undue influence over agencies like the OSC and MSPB, which Congress intended to operate independently but are now functioning under the Administration’s direction.”
Marrazzo seeks reinstatement, back pay, other monetary and administrative relief as appropriate, and declarations from the court that the defendants’ actions violated the Constitution, various other laws and her statutory and constitutional rights.
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