5 months ago
The White House has tapped Jim O'Neill, a top deputy to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to serve as acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) following the ouster of Susan Monarez, who lasted mere weeks in her position.
Newsweek reached out to the White House by email outside of normal business hours on Thursday evening for comment.
Why It Matters
The White House removed CDC Director Susan Monarez from her post for not being "aligned with the President's agenda of Making America Healthy Again," according to White House spokesperson Kush Desai, but she's now saying the decision must come directly from Trump, who has not said anything publicly about her ouster.
The move has prompted severe backlash from health officials and lawmakers, including former CDC director Dr. Tom Frieden, who led the agency from 2009 to 2017, and Dr. Mandy Cohen, who served during the Biden administration.
Three other senior CDC officials resigned on Wednesday in reaction to her ouster: Dr. Debra Houry, the deputy director, Dr. Daniel Jernigan, head of the CDC's National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, and Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, head of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.
Daskalakis specifically wrote a letter to Houry, which was posted on X, in which he said that he cannot "serve in an environment that treats CDC as a tool to generate policies and materials that do not reflect scientific reality and are designed to hurt rather than to improve the public's health."
Trump previously tapped David Weldon, a former Florida congressman, to run the CDC, but yanked the nomination due to concerns over his views on vaccines and autism.
What To Know
O'Neill, currently the deputy secretary of HHS, will reportedly step in after Monarez's ouster amid clashes with Kennedy over his push to reshape federal vaccine policy, The Associated Press reported, citing an administration official who requested anonymity since no formal announcement has yet occurred.
Monarez's departure would deepen a leadership vacuum at the $9.2 billion agency as lawmakers demand oversight and warn that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s reshaped vaccine panel lacks credibility ahead of its September meeting.
Kennedy said that change was needed due to "a lot of trouble at the CDC" that required "getting rid of some people over the long term, in order for us to change the institutional culture."
Monarez's lawyers said that the administration is trying to oust her because she refuses to "rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts." If removed, her tenure would be the shortest since the CDC's founding in 1946.
O'Neill, who would replace her should the administration succeed, is a longtime libertarian-leaning health policy figure who served as principal associate deputy secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services during the George W. Bush administration. A close ally of venture capitalist Peter Thiel, O'Neill has been an advocate of loosening regulations at the Food and Drug Administration.
What People Are Saying
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., at a news conference: "I will confirm that we let go Susan Monarez yesterday. I'm not going to talk about personnel issues, but, you know, the CDC is an agency that is very troubled for a very long time."
Dr. Debra Houry, referring to Susan Monarez in comments to the Associated Press: "We were going to see if she was able to weather the storm. And when she was not, we were done."
This article includes reporting by The Associated Press.
Update 8/28/25, 6:48 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with additional information.
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