Jim O’Neill has been chosen to function appearing director of the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention, a supply acquainted with the matter confirmed Thursday — at some point after the CDC’s Senate-confirmed chief was ousted.
A former tech investor, O’Neill presently serves as deputy secretary of Well being and Human Companies, working beneath HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
CBS Information has reached out to the White Home for remark.
He’ll take over the CDC after a tumultuous 24 hours for the Atlanta-based public well being company. Susan Monarez was terminated by the White Home on Wednesday after simply weeks on the job, main her attorneys to argue that solely President Trump can lawfully hearth her. Additionally they allege Monarez was “focused” for resisting “unscientific, reckless directives.”
At the least 4 different prime CDC leaders have additionally resigned in latest days, in some instances criticizing the Trump administration’s views on vaccines or cuts to the company.
O’Neill has served as deputy HHS secretary since June, after working on the company throughout former President George W. Bush’s administration. His HHS biography credit him with main reforms on the Meals and Drug Administration to “overhaul meals security rules” within the late 2000s.
O’Neill beforehand labored within the orbit of Peter Thiel, a Silicon Valley enterprise capitalist and GOP megadonor. He served as CEO of the nonprofit Thiel Basis, and he co-founded the Thiel Fellowship, a scholarship program that provides $200,000 to college-age entrepreneurs who agree to remain out of college, in keeping with his HHS bio. O’Neill additionally labored at Thiel’s hedge fund, Clarium Capital.
CDC faces turmoil as director ousted
Monarez was fired from the CDC on Wednesday, lower than a month after the Senate confirmed her to guide the company. She beforehand served as appearing director beginning in January.
White Home spokesman Kush Desai mentioned Monarez “will not be aligned with the President’s agenda of Making America Wholesome Once more.” A lawyer for the director, Mark Zaid, known as the transfer “legally poor” as a result of she was fired by a White Home staffer fairly than Mr. Trump himself.
The CDC has had a tumultuous few months, marked by a whole lot of layoffs and sweeping adjustments spearheaded by Kennedy, a longtime vaccine skeptic who has questioned the COVID-19 pictures and promoted discredited theories linking sure childhood vaccines to autism. Kennedy fired each member of the CDC’s unbiased vaccine advisory panel earlier this yr.
There was friction between Kennedy and Monarez — who has mentioned vaccines “completely save lives” — over the well being company’s strategy to vaccines, CDC officers informed CBS Information.
The company can be nonetheless grappling with a capturing exterior its headquarters earlier this month. Police mentioned the gunman harbored “discontent with the COVID-19 vaccinations.”
In a resignation electronic mail despatched to CDC workers on Wednesday, the company’s former Chief Medical Officer Debra Houry warned of a “rise of misinformation” about vaccines, and wrote: “For the nice of the nation and the world, the science at CDC ought to by no means be censored or topic to political pauses or interpretations.”
And Demetre Daskalakis, who led the Nationwide Middle for Immunization and Respiratory Ailments, publicly criticized Kennedy’s views on vaccines and strategy to main HHS in a scathing resignation letter posted on X.
“Having labored in native and nationwide public well being for years, I’ve by no means skilled such radical non-transparency, nor have I seen such unskilled manipulation of knowledge to realize a political finish fairly than the nice of the American folks,” Daskalakis mentioned.
The flood of resignations and Monarez’s firing drew outrage from congressional Democrats and pushback from some Republicans.
Republican Sen. Invoice Cassidy of Louisiana, a doctor who chairs the Senate well being committee and voted to substantiate Kennedy, mentioned the departures will “require oversight.”
In the meantime, Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington known as Kennedy a “harmful man” and argued he ought to be fired.
Kennedy reacted to the upheaval on Thursday by calling the CDC “very troubled.”
“There’s a number of bother at CDC, and it may require eliminating some folks over the long run to ensure that us to alter the institutional tradition,” he mentioned at an occasion in Texas. “I am very assured within the political workers that we now have down there now.”
