Marty McCurry is often wrong as a pandemic critic, but he is poised to lead the FDA he opposed

Panelists at the Covid Conference last fall were asked to express their regret. It was supported during the pandemic, but has now become viewed as misguided. Covid Contact Tracing said. Another school said. The third person said they have a vaccine obligation.

When it was Marty McCurry’s turn, a Johns Hopkins surgeon said, “I can’t think of anything.”

For President Donald Trump’s candidate, McCurry, leading the Food and Drug Administration, which appears to have been confirmed after Thursday’s Senate Committee hearing, was a distinctive response. McCurry, an decorated doctor and critic of many medical colleagues, caught Trump’s attention during the pandemic, which frequently appears on Fox News shows such as “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”

Many former FDA officials and scientists with knowledge of the institution are somewhat optimistic about McCurry.

“He is a world-class surgeon and has health policy expertise,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, a Brown University professor in epidemiology and a former colleague of Johns Hopkins’ McCurry. “If you have pancreatic cancer, he’s the person you want to have surgery on you. College is probably losing a lot of money so he doesn’t do the job.”

His critics say he contributes to the pandemic narrative that has sometimes exaggerated the harms of the Covid vaccine, boosted the risk of the virus, and led many Americans to avoid shots and other practices intended to curb transmission and reduce hospitalization and death.

If he takes the reins at the FDA and moves from Gadfly to head of the agency that regulates the fifth in the US economy, McCurry must engage in the spiny challenges of governance.

“He spent raving about the pandemic on healthcare providers as if he were an outsider,” said Jonathan Howard, a New York City neurologist and author of We Want Them Theysected book, We Want Them Theysected, which criticizes McCurry and other academics who opposed government policies. “Now he’s really founded. Everything that happens will be his responsibility.”

At his confirmation hearing, McCurry made a lower key tone, praised the FDA’s professional staff and committed to applying science and common sense appropriate to services attacking chronic diseases in the United States, including studying food additives and chemicals that could contribute to a decline in health.

“We need more humility in healthcare organizations. As new data comes, you need to evolve your position,” he testified. It is not how much you know that it is, that is your humility and your willingness to learn to go from your patients.”

Co-workers praise McCurry’s skills and intelligence as a surgeon and health policy thinker. He contributed to the 2009 surgical checklist, which is believed to have prevented thousands of mistakes and infections in the operating room. He wrote a 2016 paper claiming that medical errors were the third cause of the US death, but some researchers said the claims were exaggerated. He also founded or served as director of a company, and said at the hearing that the surgical techniques he invented would ultimately help treat diabetes.

But humility is not McCurry’s most obvious trait.

During the pandemic, he took him to Op-Eds and conservative media, who have controversial positions on public health policy. Some prove to be sharp, while others seem less predictable in hindsight.

In December 2020, McCurry ignored established scientific knowledge and said vaccinations of 20% of the population were sufficient to produce “squad immunity.” In a February 2021 Wall Street Journal work, he predicted that Covid would effectively disappear by April, as many people became immune from infection or vaccination. The US death toll from Covid was 560,000 that April, with an additional 650,000 deaths. In June 2021, he said he was unable to find evidence of symbiotic death in one of his previously healthy children. By then, there have been many reports of such deaths, but children were far less likely to suffer from severe illness than older people.

In February 2023, McCurry testified in Congress that the laboratory leak theory of Covid’s origins was a “Brailer,” a surprisingly clear statement for scientists discussing unresolved issues.

Some public health officials felt that McCurry had attacked authorities working in difficult situations for free.

“He’s got to be a pretty reasonable person and say a lot of unnecessary things that are on top,” said Asish Ja, the dean of the Department of Public Health at Brown University, who was the White House Covid-19 response coordinator under President Joe Biden.

And while almost everyone involved in the fight against Covid admits they made things wrong during the pandemic, Jha said, “It never did anything from Marty.”

McCurry did not respond to requests for comment.

McCully accused Biden administration officials of ignoring new evidence that previous infections from Covid could be more effective against future infections than vaccinations. He was probably right, but he said his statement appears to encourage people to get infected.

“It makes sense to say that the vaccine obligation wasn’t the right approach,” she said. “But you can understand that people are blindly trying to get out of the situation, and some people thought the vaccine order was appropriate.”

In Johns Hopkins, for example, Nuzzo opposed the campus booster mandate in 2022, but understood the final decision to demand it. School officials intend to bring students back to campus and are worried that the outbreak will be shut down again, she said.

“We can argue that bad laws are bad because seat belt laws conflict with civil rights,” Howard said. “But the better thing is to encourage people to wear seat belts.”

McCurry’s statement “There is no blessing,” he said. “These are people dealing with the overwhelming virus, and he constantly accused them of lying.”

Several public health officials were particularly upset by McCulley Cast Asspation in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Vaccine Safety Program. On January 16, 2023, McCurry appeared on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News Show, said the CDC “stimulated to downplay” evidence of an increased risk of stroke among Medicare beneficiaries who had won the Covid booster. In fact, the CDC detects potential signals of additional strokes in one database and released that information for transparency, Nuzzo said. Further investigations revealed that there is no actual risk.

McCurry’s pandemic views remained largely untapped during Thursday’s hearing, but Democrat and Republican senators repeatedly looked into his views on Mifepristone, an abortion drug that has become more likely to be used without direct medical supervision due to the 2021 FDA ruling. Many Republicans want to reverse the FDA ruling. Democrats say there is evidence to support drug safety when women take it at home.

McCurry tried to satisfy both parties. He said Sen. Maggie Hassan (DN.H.) was led by science and had no preconceived notions about the safety of Mifepristone. Republican Bill Cassidy, chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, asked questions, and the abortion enemy would look into ongoing drug data from the FDA’s risk assessment system.

The abortion drug question exemplifies the kind of dilemma McAllie faces with the FDA, Jha said.

“He’ll have to decide whether he’ll listen to scientists in the administration or to his boss, who often oppose science,” he said. “He is a clever, thoughtful man and my hope is that he will find his way.”

“The two most important organs for FDA commissioners are the brain and spine,” said former FDA deputy commissioner Joshua Scharfstein. “Spine because of the impact that comes from many directions, not just political but commercial, and from multiple advocacy communities. It’s very important to stand up to the success of the agency.”

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