(This March 13 story has been refiled to add a dropped word in paragraph 8)
(Reuters) – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s chief counsel, Hilary Perkins, has resigned, the federal agency said in a post on social media platform X on Thursday, just two days after her appointment was announced.
In a post on LinkedIn, Perkins confirmed that she had left the agency, saying her previous work for the Justice Department had become a distraction from the Trump administration’s work.
Perkins’ appointment had been part of Tuesday’s official announcement from the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) of a reorganization of chief counsel roles that gave HHS’s new general counsel oversight of the FDA’s top lawyer. HHS oversees the FDA and other health agencies including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The HHS and FDA did not respond to a request for comment.
The resignation comes after Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri openly criticized Martin Makary, President Donald Trump’s nominee for FDA Commissioner, for Perkins’ appointment describing her as pro-abortion and having supported vaccine mandates.
Makary has not yet been confirmed for the head of FDA and it was not clear what if any role he played in Perkins’ appointment.
Reuters was unable to reach Makary for comment.
Perkins had worked at the Department of Justice from 2019 in the consumer protection division and defended the FDA to keep the abortion pill mifepristone on the market with no new restrictions in a case that went to the Supreme Court, legal documents show.
She also defended the FDA in several cases brought by pro-abortion plaintiffs who sought to relax restrictions on the drug which included her arguing against dropping in person dispensing during the pandemic, according to a Reuters review of case filings.
“Unfortunately, my work as a career attorney at the Department of Justice defending the FDA throughout multiple administrations – which I performed consistent with my oath to zealously advocate on behalf of the United States – created an unnecessary distraction from advancing the Administration’s priorities,” Perkins said in the LinkedIn post.
Makary has said that as FDA head he would look at mifepristone data and rules about how it is dispensed.
(Reporting by Mariam Sunny in Bengaluru; additional reporting by Caroline Humer and Jon Stempel; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila and Sam Holmes)
