Steven J. Hatfill, a biosecurity expert whose views helped form the basis for Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decision to cancel funding for mRNA vaccine research, was fired over the weekend from his job as a senior adviser at the Department of Health and Human Services, he and a senior department official said.
The official said Dr. Hatfill was let go because he had misrepresented himself as the “chief medical officer” for the assistant secretary for preparedness and response, and was “not coordinating policy-making with leadership.”
In a brief telephone interview on Tuesday, Dr. Hatfill said that was not true. He said he was ousted as part of “a coup to overthrow Mr. Kennedy” that he claimed was being organized by Matt Buckham, Mr. Kennedy’s chief of staff. But he did not explain why his ouster was evidence of the effort. Dr. Hatfill said that Mr. Buckham had told him that the secretary wanted “to go in a different direction” and had asked him to resign.
Dr. Hatfill said that he had refused, and had told Mr. Buckham that the department would have to fire him instead.
The health department, he added, had printed business cards for him that identified him as a senior adviser and chief medical officer. His spokesman texted a reporter an image of the business card that showed the title.
Mr. Buckham could not be reached for comment, but the health department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to address a personnel matter, said that “firing a staff member for cause does not add up to a coup.”
The move was reported earlier by Bloomberg.
Dr. Hatfill, a onetime Army biodefense researcher, gained national attention more than two decades ago when he was wrongly accused of being involved in the 2001 anthrax attacks. He was brought into the Department of Health and Human Services earlier this year to serve the assistant secretary responsible for preventing and responding to biological threats, including pandemics and bioterror attacks.
Dr. Hatfill has long complained that the Covid-19 vaccines, some of which relied on mRNA technology, were rushed into production. He served as a medical and scientific adviser to the White House during the first Trump administration.
During that time, he promoted the use of hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malaria drug, as a treatment for Covid, despite warnings from the Food and Drug Administration against it. He said in an interview at the time that he had taken the drug while in Africa.
In the interview on Tuesday, he said the “protest” against Mr. Kennedy among some of the secretary’s own advisers had been “breeding for some time.” He did not elaborate.
Dr. Hatfill has long been a contentious figure. In a recent appearance on Stephen K. Bannon’s podcast, he asserted without evidence that “it was more dangerous to take a vaccine than it was to contract Covid-19 and be hospitalized with it.” He also said the “accumulated data” justified Mr. Kennedy’s decision to cancel $500 million in contracts for mRNA vaccine research and development.