To: The Regents of The University of California, UCSF President James Milliken, UCSF Chancellor Sam Hawgood, Dean of the UCSF School of Medicine Talmadge King Jr., UCSF Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Catherine Lucey, UCSF Vice Provost for Academic Affairs Brian Alldredge, President and Chief Executive Officer UCSF Health Suresh Gunasekaran, Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer Brian Smith, and the UCSF Academic Senate
We, the undersigned – including academic faculty, students, alumni, and concerned members of the public – respectfully but urgently call upon UCSF leadership to not permit Dr. Vinay Prasad to return to a position at the institution. We submit the following documented concerns as the basis for this petition.
I. Toxic and Abusive Leadership Culture at the FDA
During his tenure as Director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) at the FDA, Dr. Prasad presided over a work environment that multiple reports and insider accounts have characterized as deeply dysfunctional and harmful to career agency staff.
A widely-cited STAT News investigation published in October 2025 titled "Under Vinay Prasad, Employees at a Key FDA Center Fear Speaking Out, Look for the Exits" reported that CBER staff described the workplace as rife with mistrust and paranoia. Employees reported fearing retaliation for voicing scientific disagreement and dozens sought to leave the agency entirely.
According to reporting by Endpoints News, the FDA launched a formal investigation into internal complaints against Dr. Prasad, retaining outside assistance to examine allegations of abusive behavior toward staff and stating that "aside from creating a toxic work environment, Prasad has also been accused of berating his staff and retaliating against reviewers who questioned his decisions."
Career FDA official Richard Forshee, who led vaccine safety and surveillance, was reportedly removed from his role by Dr. Prasad and replaced with a hand-picked associate, a move widely viewed inside the agency as retaliatory and disruptive to established safety functions.
Wilson Bryan, former director of the FDA's gene therapy division, was quoted in reporting as saying he no longer puts any stock in Dr. Prasad's public statements, comparing them to pharmaceutical company press releases in terms of credibility.
A culture of intimidation, retaliation, and fear that drives qualified career scientists out of a federal agency is antithetical to the values of academic medicine and scientific integrity that UCSF represents.
Allowing Dr. Prasad into a position of influence at UCSF, particularly one involving trainees and junior colleagues, risks importing this destructive leadership style into the institution.
Additionally, we acknowledge that UCSF faculty and trainees have expressed hesitation about their involvement in drafting or signing this letter due to fear of retaliation - further evidence of the harm that would be generated by allowing Dr. Prasad to return to a UCSF faculty position.
II. Suppression of Scientific Dissent and Evidence Manipulation
Beyond creating a hostile environment, Dr. Prasad has been credibly reported to have actively suppressed scientific findings that contradicted his ideological views:
Dr. Prasad allegedly ordered FDA scientists to withdraw a peer-reviewed paper under review at the journal Vaccine, a paper showing that COVID vaccines continued to offer benefits outweighing risks across age groups. This constitutes a direct suppression of taxpayer-funded scientific work.
He reportedly overruled FDA career scientists without adequate evidentiary justification in restricting COVID vaccine approvals, acting on ideological grounds rather than the established evidence base.
Dr. Prasad issued an agency-wide memo declaring COVID vaccines had killed children in the United States, basing this claim primarily on unverified VAERS reports, a methodology he and his colleagues have weaponized while ignoring the limitations and contextual safeguards that responsible researchers apply to this data source.
The selective use of evidence to reach predetermined conclusions, combined with active suppression of contradictory findings, represents a fundamental violation of the scientific integrity expected of any UCSF faculty member.
III. Inflammatory Public Rhetoric and Comparisons of COVID-19 precautions to Nazism
Long before his role at the FDA, Dr. Prasad's public conduct raised serious concerns within academic medicine:
- In a 2021 blog post, Dr. Prasad drew explicit comparisons between COVID-19 public health restrictions, including masking and vaccine requirements, and the rise of totalitarianism in Nazi Germany. When confronted on his claims, he chose not only to not apologize to those offended, but instead to double-down and shared screenshots on Twitter of respected physicians who had condemned his inflammatory rhetoric, specifically including two Jewish physicians, calling them liars.
- When Prasad was invited to lecture at the Tufts Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences in February 2022, GSBS Dean Daniel Jay issued a public statement emphatically denouncing Dr. Prasad's Nazi comparisons. The University likewise joined in disavowing his comments. Dr. Prasad did not respond to multiple media requests for comment. In fact, his own boss at UCSF at the time in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo tweeted about his commentary as well, disavowing his statements and making clear that UCSF was aware of Dr. Prasad's behavior.
- Dr. Prasad has repeatedly cherry-picked data and misrepresented evidence about COVID-19 vaccines, masking, and public health restrictions, weaving a narrative of distrust targeting the CDC, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and other institutions. His approach has been characterized by multiple scientific commentators as prioritizing contrarian notoriety over rigorous evidence evaluation.
- Dr. Prasad attempted to get a resident physician in the Department of Dermatology at the University of Washington fired after he responded publicly on X (formerly Twitter) to Dr. Prasad’s rhetoric on COVID-19 vaccines and precautions.
- Dr. Prasad often used inflammatory and unprofessional language on his public platforms including X (formerly Twitter) and YouTube, while publicly associating himself with UCSF and identifying his positions in his biography. These include instances such as calling former President Joe Biden a “fucking moron,” insulting patients, and saying that he did not believe in forgiveness or amnesty for people who advocated for public health precautions for the COVID-19 pandemic, stating that “these pieces of shit are still lying. I mean, like if you want forgiveness, the first thing you have to say is what you actually did wrong, and they're still fucking lying."
Using inflammatory and unprofessional language, using his public platform to harass colleagues and patients, attempting to negatively impact the careers of trainees, and invoking Nazi analogies in discussions of public health policy are not merely controversial nor forms of benign academic speech. These are actions that cause real harm and generate public distrust in ways that have measurable consequences for population health. UCSF has an obligation to consider this pattern seriously.
IV. Pattern of Avoiding Accountability and Lack of Transparency
A consistent thread running through coverage of Dr. Prasad's conduct is his refusal to engage with legitimate scrutiny:
- Nearly every investigative report into Dr. Prasad's conduct at CBER has included a version of the statement: "Prasad did not respond to requests for comment." This includes reporting by award-winning journalists at STAT News, the Wall Street Journal, and other outlets on matters of direct public concern.
- As a public servant overseeing the nation's vaccine regulatory apparatus, Dr. Prasad's refusal to communicate transparently with the press or the scientific community about his decision-making represents a serious failure of accountability.
- While Prasad has not hesitated to give friendly interviews to aligned media figures, he has consistently evaded tough but fair questions from credible journalists about his leadership, regulatory decisions, and the complaints made against him by his colleagues and his own staff.
V. Conflicts of Interest
Dr. Prasad has extended his influence and reach through multiple platforms multiple monetized platforms through which he profits from his contrarian positions, extending his reach well beyond academic discourse.
These include a personal Substack newsletter, a YouTube channel, and a podcast titled "Plenary Sessions." He also contributes to several outside publications and organizations, including the monetized Substack "Sensible Medicine," contributing to the Substack "The Free Press," as an active contributor to The Brownstone Institute, an organization opposed to COVID-era public health measures and founded by Jeffrey Tucker, a known advocate for child labor, and as an active contributor to The Epoch Times, a publication with documented ties to money laundering for the Falun Gong and a history of promoting conspiracy theories.
In the biographical profiles he provides to these outlets, Dr. Prasad explicitly references his titles and institutional affiliations at UCSF. By doing so, he lends the credibility and reputational weight of UCSF to platforms and organizations with which the University may not wish to be publicly associated.
VII. UCSF Should Already Be Aware of These Issues
In an episode of the podcast Medicine and the Machine on March 15th, 2023 titled "Rogue Faculty and Academic Freedom in the Age of Misinformation," Dr. Eric Topol, Dr. Abraham Verghese, and Dr. Robert Harringon discuss the challenges posed by the conflict between the concepts of scientific inquiry and academic freedom with the limits of free speech maintaining academic integrity in the face of the COVID pandemic.
In that episode, these leading physicians discuss that Dr. Bob Wachter, the Chair of the Department of Medicine, was aware that Dr. Prasad was making false statements about COVID and COVID vaccines and was harming the reputation of the institution.
From the transcript of the episode:
"One thing that gave these individuals power is social media. I discussed this with our mutual friend, Bob Wachter, because he has one particularly difficult character at UCSF. I asked, did you ever meet with him to discuss the things we're talking about? And he said, first, he's not in my department. But we did meet with him, and we told him what he's doing, what he's writing, what he's saying is completely false, and it's bad for the reputation of the institution. He admitted that they were concerned not only about muting him or somehow restricting his ability to speak out, but also about the fear of being attacked on social media."
VIII. Our Requests of UCSF Leadership
We respectfully request that UCSF leadership:
- Not allow Dr. Prasad to return to a position at UCSF.
- Publicly reaffirm UCSF's commitment to scientific integrity, evidence-based medicine, and a workplace culture free from intimidation and retaliation
- Recognize that UCSF's reputation as a world-leading institution for medical research and training depends on upholding the highest standards of scientific rigor, institutional integrity, and care for those who study and work within the institution.
We trust that the UCSF leadership will take these concerns seriously and act accordingly.
Respectfully submitted by Members of the UCSF Community, the Broader Scientific Community, and Concerned Members of the Public.