Terry Adirim, a senior Central Intelligence Agency official and former senior defense official who played a pivotal and potentially illegal role in the Biden Administration’s military vaccine mandate, was recently fired from the agency, a source has exclusively revealed to Breitbart News.
Adirim, a former senior Biden appointee at the Department of Defense who was performing the duties of the assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, had decamped in December to the CIA as director of CIA Centers for Global Health Services until about a week ago, according to the source.
Her firing was related to her role in forcing service members to choose between taking a vaccine that was under Emergency Use Authorization or being kicked out, according to the source.
On September 14, 2021, about a month after then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered the vaccine mandate, Adirim issued a memo instructing DOD health care providers to consider the vaccine available to service members — Pfizer’s BioNTech vaccine — as “interchangeable” with a vaccine that was approved by the FDA, known as Comirnaty.
She wrote:
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.
Her memo was considered legally dubious even inside the Pentagon, as Breitbart News reported in September 2022.
A month after Adirim issued her memo, a senior defense official proposed allowing service members who did not want to take the EUA vaccine to wait for the FDA-approved vaccine before facing punishment for being unvaccinated.
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Readiness Policy and Oversight David J. Smith, proposed in a draft memo that would replace Adirim’s memo:
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.
Smith’s action memo was addressed to Adirim, with a recommendation for her to sign the draft memo with the proposed change.
According to the documents obtained by Breitbart News, the draft memo had been sent to the military services for coordination, and a senior Air Force official objected to it, arguing that adopting the change could open the military up for more litigation and possibly force it to reverse punishments already given for not taking the vaccine.
His response said the proposed change would suggest that DOD considers the EUA-manufactured vaccine different from the FDA-approved Comirnaty product and could open the Air Force up to lawsuits, and that since adverse action had already possibly been taken, “significant remedial actions” would probably be required.
The proposal was never adopted, with legal implications for the DoD.
Under 10 U.S.C. Section 1107(a), a defense secretary can order service members to take an FDA-approved vaccine, but he cannot legally order service members to take an EUA-manufactured vaccine without seeking and obtaining a waiver from the president.
Also under 10 U.S.C. Section 1107(a), that waiver must be signed by the president then the defense secretary must formally notify Congress of the waiver. Congress has never received notification of such a waiver.
Austin had pledged in an August 9, 2021, memo to service members that he would seek a presidential waiver, but it is not clear he ever did so. He also pledged that his order would only use the FDA-approved vaccine. Breitbart News questioned the Biden Pentagon if Austin ever sought a presidential waiver to mandate the EUA-manufactured vaccine, but was given the same verbiage that appeared in Adirim’s memo:
Per FDA guidance, the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine and the Comirnaty COVID-19 vaccine had the same formulation and the two vaccines were ‘interchangeable.’ Accordingly, DoD health care providers could ‘use doses distributed under the EUA to administer the vaccination series as if the doses were the licensed vaccine.’
Comirnaty has not been widely available in the U.S. for reasons that are not clear. In July 2022, the FDA reissued its EUA of the Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, noting, “There is no adequate, approved, and available alternative to Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine to prevent COVID-19.”
The DOD later would be hit with lawsuits from service members suing the DOD for trying to force service members to take the EUA vaccine instead of the FDA-approved vaccine.
One of the lawsuits was led by former Marine Capt. Dale Saran, the military attorney who ended the Pentagon’s anthrax vaccine in 2004. In an interview with Breitbart News in 2022, he called Adirim’s memo a “fraud.” he said:
The undersecretary of defense for health affairs, a woman named Terry Adirim, published a memo claiming that the unlicensed product, BNT162b2 — Pfizer’s unlicensed EUA product — could be substituted in that it was interchangeable with the licensed product. … . That’s the fraud that’s at the heart of our case.
It would not be the first time Adirim would appear to skirt the law.
Adirim left the DOD in 2022 to go to the Department of Veteran Affairs, where she appeared to have violated the Hatch Act, as previously reported by Breitbart News. Just weeks before the 2022 midterm elections, Adirim liked a tweet soliciting donations to Democrats. Doing so is not allowed under the Hatch Act, which seeks to make sure federal employees do not engage in politics while in an official role.
The tweet, by a doctor named Mark Shrime on October 30, said:
If you are not voting blue this election then you’re voting to end our Democracy. Please take a moment to donate and/or share this link. We need this win for the right to choose and for America!
#VoteBlueForDemocracy
He included a link to ActBlue, a fundraising organization for the Democratic National Committee.
According to the Hatch Act, a federal employee — even when not on duty — cannot “like” a post soliciting political contributions at any time.
The Office of Special Counsel (OSC) states in its Hatch Act guidelines for federal employees on social media: “No federal employee may ‘like’ a post soliciting for partisan political contributions at any time.”
RELATED: Former Green Beret Details His Experience Resisting Forced Coronavirus Vaccination
The guidelines also state: “Liking, Sharing, or Retweeting Solicitations Rule: Employees, even when not on duty or in the workplace, may not like, share, or retweet a post that solicits political contributions, including invitations to fundraising events.”
Asked if Adirim violated the Hatch Act, then-VA Press Secretary Terrence Hayes said in a statement:
VA will not comment on personnel matters and notes that by law, the Office of Special Counsel has exclusive authority to render advisory opinions on and investigate allegations of political activity prohibited by the Hatch Act; and the Merit Systems Protection Board has exclusive authority to determine whether a violation of the Hatch Act has occurred.
After Breitbart News’ query, Adirim unliked the tweet.
Adirim has since protected her X account, but has been voicing support for vaccines on her Bluesky account.
More than 8,700 service members were forced out of the military over the vaccine mandate, and tens of thousands more are estimated to have voluntarily left.
Since taking office again in January, the Trump administration has been trying to undo the damage caused by the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate. President Donald Trump in January signed an executive order to reinstate service members who were kicked out, along with backpay and their same rank, and is also welcoming back those who voluntarily left, but without backpay and a minimum of two years of service.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth followed up with a directive to the services to implement the executive order and on Monday, the Pentagon announced it would be contacting every service member who was kicked out over the vaccine with further instructions on how to be reinstated. Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement:
We’re committed to doing right by those who were affected by the Department’s former COVID-19 vaccination policy. For the roughly 8,700 service members who were separated solely for refusing the vaccine, this is an opportunity to return to service-and we want them to know the door is open.
Starting today, the Department will begin outreach to ensure each of these individuals receives clear information on how to pursue reinstatement.
He said they have until April 1, 2026, to pursue reinstatement.
“We’re working hard to make sure each of them receives clear information and support throughout the process. Their service mattered then, and it still matters now. We’re ready to welcome them back!” he added.
