ICAN Releases Recordings of FDA’s Peter Marks; Vaccine Official Dismissed Vaccine Injuries

The Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN) and REACT 19 held a joint press conference today to reveal a trove of secret recordings and FOIA documents of Peter Marks, the former Director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. The press conference included ICAN Founder Del Bigtree, Attorney Aaron Siri, and REACT 19’s Brianne Dressen.

Along with the press conference, ICAN has published an online timeline showing Peter Marks’s statements from the vaccine rollout. Marks was the person who coined the term “Operation Warp Speed” and pressured FDA scientists to rush BLA approval of the COVID-19 vaccines so that the Biden administration could enact a mandate for members of the military in August 2021.

In October 2020, the FDA Safety Surveillance of COVID-19 vaccines showed a working list of possible adverse outcomes from the vaccines. There are 22 listed potential outcomes, including death, autoimmune diseases, guillain barre, transverse myelitis, pregnancy and birth outcomes, and myocarditis/pericarditis. The timeline notes that Marks is fully aware of these side effects but issued a statement in December celebrating the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. He said, “Efforts to speed vaccine development have not sacrificed scientific standards or the integrity of our vaccine evaluation process.”

Days later, a woman took the COVID-19 vaccine on camera as the first nurse to get the inoculation. Bigtree referred to this as a “big publicity stunt,” that didn’t turn out the way they hoped. As she talked about the hope the vaccine provides for medical staff in the COVID unit, she said she started to feel dizzy. Seconds later, she fainted as medical staff walked in to provide care.

During the press conference, Bigtree said there are 38,541 deaths just from the COVID-19 vaccines, and a Harvard report determined that VAERS only captures 1% of all injuries. Bigtree noted that people have criticized VAERS because they can find examples of a few car accidents included in the data; however, if the nurse in the video had tried to drive immediately after receiving the vaccine, it could have caused an accident.

“We as the public should demand if you’re going to write off all 38,541 reports, we need to know how you did that.” Bigtree said. “What number is too many?”

At the end of December 2020, Maddie De Gary received her first vaccine dose. The timeline states “About 18 hours after vaccination, Maddie developed severe nerve pain, a feeling like electric shocks going down her neck and spine, excruciating abdominal pain, and severe chest pain that felt like her heart was being pulled out. Her vaccine arm swelled up and became numb. Her fingers and toes turned white and were ice cold to the touch. The pain in her toes was so bad that she had to walk on her heels.”

In February 2021, Pfizer’s Cumulative Analysis Report confirmed 1,233 deaths from the COVID-19 vaccine from December 2020 through February 2021 and 11,361 people with an adverse reaction that had not yet recovered. The document said, “The magnitude of underreporting is unknown.” 

While this is happening, doctors contacted Peter Marks, stating that neurological harm caused by the vaccine is not being treated and that VAERS reports have been submitted. Marks neglected to respond to the concerns, but another FDA official responded and suggested that they fill out VAERS reports despite the fact that they have already completed that step. 

In March, Marks was made aware that there have been over 1,000 neurological complications connected to the vaccine. Dr. Farinaz Safevi of the NIH asked the individual for 1-2 weeks to collect more information before publicizing the information.

In a June 2021 online meeting with FDA stakeholders, Marks said there are some cases of death that have been “very sensationalized.” He said that in every case that he is aware of that they have investigated, there is an “almost definitively different cause of death.”

The recordings include several group chats between Brianne Dressen, who was injured in the AstraZeneca trial, Peter Marks, and other FDA officials. In those recordings, Dressen tells the officials that vaccine injuries are not being taken seriously by doctors. Marks said even if the doctor determines that the vaccine is not associated with the condition, he doesn’t understand why doctors wouldn’t treat the condition that is in front of them.

In one meeting, Dressen pointed to the Pfizer documents that had been withheld. “The FDA, who approved this vaccine after 5 months of reviewing the data, is now requesting 50 years to release the data that very well could hold some of the keys to getting them better,” Dressen told Marks on the January 2022 call. 

Marks responded, saying, “Having the biologics license application is not gonna help here. I can say that with absolute certainty. What we’re seeing is what happens with vaccines in the real world. We’re not trying to stonewall. There’s nothing to hide there.”

Dressen said the information is in those documents because the post-marketing information from Pfizer shows the conditions people were experiencing. “Everyone found their syndromes in there that were told they don’t exist,” Dressen said. “They found it in black and white, and for them, it’s been devastating. Every one of them are in there. It’s very detailed, it’s broken down.”

Marks said he was sorry and needed to leave the call, but he continued to state that there is nothing hidden in the clinical trials that explains what is happening. 

In the press conference, Aaron Siri said that public health officials often say that post-licensure data cannot be used to prove causation.

“Generally, it’s the typical retort that we encounter all the time,” Siri said. “Post-licensure, the only thing you can do is retrospective epidemiological studies, and those can never prove causation. You have to look at the clinical trial. Ok, well, let’s look at the clinical trial. ‘No, the clinical trial can’t answer the question,’ you just heard Peter Marks say that. The clinical trial’s not good enough; the post-licensure can’t prove causation. How do you ever prove a vaccine causes an injury? This is the shell game they play. The FDA reviewed that data in 108 days, and for better or worse, that is what they relied upon to say that the vaccine is safe and effective.”

The documents and secret video calls are all uploaded to the timeline that was published by ICAN on Tuesday. The press conference can be watched here. The information tells a story about Marks disregarding the experiences of individuals injured by the vaccine. In April 2025, Marks resigned from his position at the FDA and criticized the new HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and said the secretary does not desire “truth and transparency,” but “rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies.

An HHS official responded that if Peter Marks “does not want to get behind restoring science to its golden standard and promoting radical transparency, then he has no place at FDA under the strong leadership of Secretary Kennedy.”