Vinay Prasad, the top vaccine regulator and chief scientific officer at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and a critic of the agency’s COVID-19 policies, has departed after being on the job for less than three months.

Dr. Vinay Prasad had been serving as the FDA's director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research since May, and was later named chief medical and scientific officer.

A spokesperson for the Health Department has said that Vinay Prasad did not want to be a "distraction to the great work of the FDA in the Trump administration."