After the ouster of former U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Susan Monarez this week, Deputy Secretary of Health Jim O’Neill will step in to lead the agency. Here’s what we know so far.
What happened?
President Donald Trump nominated Monarez, but she was removed from her position as of Wednesday, according to an X post from the Health and Human Services department. Previously, Trump nominated former congressman David Weldon but that pick received insufficient Senate votes for confirmation.
“Monarez brings an unconventional background to the role, as previous interim directors typically came from within the CDC’s career ranks,” Newsweek said at the time of her nomination earlier this year. “While not a physician, she holds a Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology, and has been a government employee since 2006, serving under both Republican and Democratic administrations.”
According to reports from both POLITICO and Reuters, Monarez was fired due to disagreements with HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is known for his controversial stances on multiple health topics, including vaccines, and Reuters said the pair sparred over vaccine policy. POLITICO also said aide Stephanie Spear helped to push Monarez out of the CDC.
“When CDC Director Susan Monarez refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts, she chose protecting the public over serving a political agenda,” lawyers Mark S. Zaid and Abbe David Lowell wrote in a statement, as cited by POITICO. “For that, she has been targeted. … As a person of integrity and devoted to science, she will not resign.”
Following Monarez’s firing, other top officials at the CDC resigned. POLITICO identified them as Chief Medical Officer Debra Houry, National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases Demetre Daskalakis and National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases Director Daniel Jernigan, citing four people familiar with the departures “granted anonymity to discuss the developments.”
“Firing Susan Monarez is another example of this administration’s ruthless and destructive political agenda which continues to politicize public health. It will cost lives,” Dr. Richard Besser, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation a health non-profit, said in a Thursday statement. “This firing is designed to silence dissent across the government. With this firing and the resignation of other top CDC leaders, the agency loses its ability to provide the best health advice to the American people. That will also cost lives.”
Who is O’Neill?
“Public health is a noble calling. When it is driven by transparent data and rigorous science, it earns public trust and keeps the world safe,” said O’Neill in a Friday X post. “The beating heart of public health in America is CDC. During the previous administration, CDC lost public trust by manipulating health data to support a political narrative.”
O’Neill doesn’t have a background in medicine, but he did previously serve in the HHS during the administration of former President George W. Bush. He led reforms of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration when he was there, per the HHS.
After his tenure in the HHS, O’Neill became the managing director of Clarium Capital, a global macro investment fund. He also served as the chief executive officer of the Thiel Foundation and is co-founder of the Thiel Fellowship, both linked to billionaire PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel. O’Neill attended Yale University and the University of Chicago.
According to Mother Jones, O’Neill is “especially well-connected in the Silicon Valley longevity movement, which seeks to extend human lifespans, and, to a lesser extent, to the ‘network state’ vision of tech-governed fiefdoms championed by Thiel and other influential Silicon Valley figures.”
Fortune reported that O’Neill “has no training in medicine and once helped Peter Thiel develop man-made islands floating outside U.S. territory.” It also described him as a “critic of health regulations.”
Mother Jones also reported that in 2016, when Trump was considering O’Neill as a potential Food and Drug Administration commissioner “O’Neill suggested that pharmaceutical companies should not be required to use clinical trials to prove drugs work, only to prove their safety.”
“Let people start using them, at their own risk,” he argued in a 2014 speech.
This June, O’Neill was sworn to serve as deputy secretary of health under Kennedy. In a statement around that time, Kennedy – who has announced an initiative to encourage people to use tech devices like AppleWatches and FitBits, touted O’Neill’s Silicon Valley connections.
“Jim O’Neill’s extensive experience in Silicon Valley and government makes him ideally suited to transition HHS into a technological innovation powerhouse,” said Kennedy. “He will help us harness cutting-edge AI, telemedicine, and other breakthrough technologies to deliver the highest quality medical care for Americans. As my deputy, he will lead innovation and help us reimagine how we serve the public. Together, we will promote outcome-centric medical care, champion radical transparency, uphold gold-standard science, and empower Americans to take charge of their own health.”
What happens next?
O’Neill said that Trump directed him to lead the CDC while keeping his duties as deputy HHS secretary. He added that the CDC will work to rebuild trust that it “squandered.”
“The Trump administration is rebuilding trust and refocusing CDC on its core mission of keeping America safe from infectious disease,” O’Neill said in his Friday X post. “We have invested in new screening technology to detect infections from foreign travelers, stopped the Texas measles outbreak, and ended the misuse of the childhood immunization schedule for Covid vaccine mandates.”
Meanwhile, Besser said the removal of Monarez will allow Kennedy to issue “reckless directives” that she tried to prevent. He asked Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chair, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) – who previously expressed a reluctance to vote in favor of Kennedy’s nomination over vaccine issues – to call for oversight.