Terry Adirim, a senior official at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and former Department of Defense (DoD) appointee, has been terminated from her position. Adirim played a significant role in implementing the Biden administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for military personnel.
The reason behind Adirim’s firing was revealed by a source exclusively to Breitbart News.
In September 2021, as the acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, Adirim issued a directive instructing DoD healthcare providers to treat the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine—authorized for emergency use—as interchangeable with the FDA-approved Comirnaty vaccine.
Her memo stated that both vaccines should be used interchangeably for vaccinating service members. The memo read:
“Per FDA guidance, these two vaccines are ‘interchangeable’ and DoD health care providers should ‘use doses distributed under the EUA to administer the vaccination series as if the doses were the licensed vaccine.‘
Consistent with FDA guidance, DoD health care providers will use both the PfizerBioNTech COVID-19 vaccine and the Comirnaty COVID-19 vaccine interchangeably for the purpose of vaccinating Service members in accordance with Secretary of Defense Memorandum, ‘Mandatory Coronavirus Disease 2019 Vaccination of Department of Defense Service Members,’ August 24, 2021.”
This directive faced internal criticism and legal scrutiny. A month later, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Readiness Policy and Oversight, David J. Smith, proposed allowing service members to wait for the FDA-approved vaccine before facing punitive measures for non-compliance.
The proposal was sent by Smith’s office to Adirim and was intended to override the guidance outlined in her previous memo to service members if adopted.
Smith’s proposed changes included the following:
“If a Service member, after medical counseling, declines administration of the EUA-manufactured product, DoD health care providers should engage with their logistics chain to secure and administer the [Biologics License Application]-manufactured Pfizer-BioNTech/Comirnaty product prior to any punitive action being taken against the Service member.”
However, this proposal was not adopted, leading to potential legal challenges for the DoD.
Adirim transitioned to the CIA in December 2024, assuming the role of Director of the CIA Centers for Global Health Services. Her recent dismissal is reportedly linked to her involvement in the vaccine mandate implementation.
