Judicial Watch Sues HHS for Records of Communication from Top FDA Officials Who Resigned Reportedly over COVID Booster Shots

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for records of communication from Dr. Marion Gruber and Dr. Philip Krause, the former director and deputy director of the US. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Office of Vaccines Research and Review, who reportedly resigned during the White House’s push to approve the COVID-19 “booster shot” (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (No. 1:22-cv-00293)).

The lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court of the District of Columbia after HHS failed to respond to a September 3, 2021, FOIA request for:

• All emails sent to and from Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research Director Marion Gruber regarding the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/CDC, the Advisory Committee on Immunization (ACIP), and/or “booster vaccines” for the prevention and/or treatment of SARS-CoV-2 and/or COVID-19.
• All emails sent to and from Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research Deputy Director Phil Krause regarding the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/CDC, the Advisory Committee on Immunization (ACIP), and/or “booster vaccines” for the prevention and/or treatment of SARS-CoV-2 and/or COVID-19.

On September 22, 2021, the FDA approved use of a booster dose of the Pfizer drug. According to the organization’s news release, the FDA, “amended the emergency use authorization (EUA) for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine to allow for use of a single booster dose, to be administered at least six months after completion of the primary series” for people at “high risk” of “severe COVID-19.”

On September 13, 2021, Gruber and Krause were among a group of resigning doctors who agreed that, “Available evidence doesn’t yet indicate a need for COVID-19 vaccine booster shots among the general population …”

Also on September 13, 2021, The Lancet published a paper to which Gruber and Krause contributed that noted:

Careful and public scrutiny of the evolving data will be needed to assure that decisions about boosting are informed by reliable science more than by politics.… Widespread boosting should be undertaken only if there is clear evidence that it is appropriate.

“This booster shot cover-up shows the FDA is politicized and corrupt,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The American people have a right to know about the safety and efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccines – especially given that officials in the FDA seem to have objected to the agency’s recommendations about the vaccines.”

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