Indian American Health Researcher Vinay Prasad Being Considered for Surgeon General
- A professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco, he became a lightning rod during the COVID pandemic for being outspoken about both his support for vaccines and his criticism of the way they're being implemented.
Indian American hematologist-oncologist and health researcher Vinay Prasad is among candidates being considered for surgeon general, Politico has reported. A professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), Politico notes that Prasad has “risen in conservative circles by opposing key parts of the pandemic response.”
The U.S. Surgeon General is the Nation’s Doctor, providing Americans with the best scientific information available on how to improve their health and reduce the risk of illness and injury.
Prasad became a lightning rod during the COVID pandemic for being outspoken about both his support for vaccines and his criticism of the way they’re being implemented. He believes that the vaccines were a “scientific success” tarnished by flawed federal vaccine policy. “We need to think about risks and benefits for individuals, and not force a one-size-fits-all solution on a country of 330 million people,” he told Reason podcast in March 2023.
In an essay in the journal Monash Bioethics Review, Prasad, along with health researcher Alyson Haslam provided a comprehensive after-the-fact assessment of the federal government’s rollout of the COVID-19 vaccines. The two argue the tremendous benefits of the COVID-19 vaccines for the elderly were undercut by government guidance and messaging that pushed vaccines on the young, healthy, and previously infected when data suggested that wasn’t worthwhile (and was in some cases counterproductive). Worse still, the government even pushed vaccine mandates when it was increasingly clear the vaccines did not stop COVID-19 transmission, they argue. To correct these errors for future pandemic responses, Prasad and Haslam recommend performing larger vaccine trials and collecting better data on vaccine performance in lower-risk populations. They also urge policy makers to be more willing to acknowledge the tradeoffs of vaccination.
Prasad is an outspoken critic of the CDC and FDA. “Trust is justified based on how an organization or system performs,” he wrote in a Feb. 17, 2023 blog on his website. . “And the truth is, the entire public health apparatus, failed.
At UCSF, Prasad runs the VK Prasad Lab, “which studies cancer drugs, health policy, clinical trials and better decision making,” according to his university profile. He studies the quality of medical evidence, cancer drug development, clinical trial design, and health care policy. “His work utilizes a wide range of epidemiological methods, and falls into the category of meta-research, and is frequently cited in health policy and evidence based medicine,” the profile added.
Author of over 500 academic articles, and the books “Ending Medical Reversal,” and “Malignant,” Prasad hosts the oncology podcast “Plenary Session,” and the general medicine podcast the “VPZD show.” He also runs a YouTube channel, and The Drug Development Letter.
He is a graduate of the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, where he was awarded the Chairman’s Award in Internal Medicine, his website noted. He is also a graduate of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Michigan State University, where he was commencement speaker for the College of Arts & Letters on behalf of the Philosophy department. He trained in general internal medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago, where he received the Gerald Grumet award for best resident teacher, and completed his fellowship in Hematology and Oncology in the joint program between National Cancer Institute and National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute at the US National Institutes of Health, where he was Chief Fellow. While at the NCI, Dr. Prasad completed a fellowship in cancer prevention.