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Controversy erupted this week over the recent firing of former senior biosecurity adviser Steven J. Hatfill.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) confirmed that it terminated Hatfill last weekend “for cause.” Hatfill had served since May as senior adviser at the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response, or ASPR — the HHS division that coordinates the nation’s preparedness and response to medical and public health emergencies.
In an interview this week with The New York Times, Hatfill claimed that agency insiders, led by Chief of Staff Matt Buckham, removed him as part of a “coup to overthrow” U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
A senior HHS official said the agency fired Hatfill for falsely claiming he was “chief medical officer” of ASPR and for failing to cooperate effectively with department leadership and government agencies.
Although Hatfill has a medical degree from Godfrey Huggins Medical School at the University of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), he does not appear to have a medical license, a credential typically required for a chief medical officer.
In an interview with Focal Points’ Nicolas Hulscher on Wednesday, Hatfill and Gray Delany — former director of MAHA Implementation who was fired from HHS in August — said their dismissals “coincided with efforts to expose the catastrophic harms of mRNA vaccine technology and the ongoing concealment of safety data within U.S. health agencies.”
Hatfill was serving as adviser to ASPR in August when Kennedy canceled nearly $500 million in contracts and grants to develop mRNA vaccines as part of the “coordinated wind-down” of mRNA development within the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, a subagency of ASPR.
Hatfill and Delany said they were among the few people at HHS working with the Make America Healthy Again, or MAHA, base to “realign the agency toward public health accountability.”
They also said Kennedy may not be aware of the “mutiny” taking place at the agency.
However, an outside adviser to HHS told The Defender that while Hatfill made some important contributions during his tenure, officials had legitimate concerns about his honesty and his working relationships with other advisers.
Neither Hatfill nor HHS responded to The Defender’s request for comment.
Hatfill falsely linked anthrax letters; investigation revealed falsified credentials
Hatfill gained national attention in mid-2002 when the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) named him a “person of interest” in its investigation of the 2001 anthrax attacks, during which letters laced with anthrax appeared in the U.S. mail shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks.
The letters killed five people and sickened 17, according to the FBI.
Authorities did not officially exonerate Hatfill until 2008.
In 2003, Hatfill sued the DOJ, alleging that FBI agents and DOJ officials involved in the anthrax investigation violated the Privacy Act by leaking information about him to the media and subjecting him to surveillance and harassment.
In June 2008, the DOJ announced it would pay $4.6 million to settle the suit. Hatfill also sued several media outlets, including the Times for defamation, and Vanity Fair and Reader’s Digest for libel. Courts dismissed the case against the Times. Hatfill settled the other cases.
During that time, reports revealed that Hatfill, who had spent about 15 years in Rhodesia and South Africa in the late 1970s and early ’80s, had allegedly maintained links to elite Rhodesian military units.
He later worked as a bioweapons expert for the U.S. Army.
During the anthrax investigation, reports revealed that Hatfill falsely claimed he had earned a doctorate. He forged a Ph.D. certificate in molecular biology from Rhodes University and submitted it to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) when applying for a position there in 1995, the Chicago Tribune reported.
The Tribune exposé noted that the forged Ph.D. was not related to the anthrax letters, “but it is an example of the kind of intriguing episodes from Hatfill’s past that have attracted intense interest from the FBI and the news media.”
Hatfield worked at NIH and later at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick in Maryland, where he studied viruses, including Ebola and Marburg.
Hatfill later served in the first Trump administration, where he promoted hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) as a treatment for the COVID-19 virus at the start of the pandemic.
In late March 2020, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted HCQ emergency use authorization (EUA) for treating COVID-19.
In June 2020, the FDA revoked the EUA, stating that “emerging scientific data” suggested the drug was “unlikely to be effective in treating COVID-19.”
The FDA also said HCQ had “serious cardiac adverse events and other potential serious side effects” that made it too risky to use.
Later in 2020, Peter Navarro, Ph.D. — who served as Trump’s assistant and directed the White House’s Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy — enlisted Hatfill to help with the White House COVID-19 response, according to documents obtained by a congressional subcommittee on COVID-19.
The two men unsuccessfully pressured the FDA to reauthorize HCQ as a COVID-19 treatment, according to the subcommittee.
Still, the White House procured millions of doses of HCQ for the national stockpile overseen by ASPR. The doses were later distributed to pharmacies and hospitals, though the drug lacked FDA authorization.
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