Topline
The White House selected Health and Human Services Deputy Secretary Jim O’Neill as the next acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to The Washington Post, tapping the technology investor for the role as former CDC leadership protested against the Trump administration and its contested firing of ex-CDC Director Susan Monarez.
Dr. Daniel Jernigan, leader of the agency’s work on emerging infectious diseases; left, Dr. Debra Houry, the agency’s deputy director and Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, a top vaccine official, gather at the walkout. (AP Photo/Ben Gray)
Associated Press
Key Facts
O’Neill has been tapped to take over as the acting director of the CDC, the Post reported, citing two unnamed sources familiar with the decision who said O’Neill would maintain his role as HHS deputy secretary.
Hundreds of staffers and protesters demonstrated outside the CDC’s Atlanta headquarters Thursday afternoon for at least an hour.
Daniel Jernigan, director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, is one of multiple CDC leaders who resigned from the agency this week, and said Thursday’s walkout was to “get the politics out of public health” and “let the science lead us, because that’s how we get to the best decisions for public health.”
Jernigan resigned from the CDC this week alongside the agency’s chief medical officer, Debra Houry, and Demetre Daskalakis, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.
Houry said her and CDC leadership “reached a tipping point,” calling out HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s promotion of “vitamins over vaccines” and saying “we knew it was a powerful statement for the three of us to do this together.”
Protesters also took issue with the ouster of Monarez, whose lawyers have rejected the White House’s termination of the director, arguing as a “presidential appointee, senate confirmed officer, only the president himself can fire her.”
Forbes has reached out to the White House for confirmation on O’Neill’s selection.
Houry speaks with reporters and supporters at the walkout.
AP Photo/Ben Gray
Workers and supporters salute to departing scientific leaders at CDC headquarters.
AP Photo/Ben Gray
Supporters hold signs during the walkout. (AP Photo/Ben Gray)
Associated Press
Who Is Jim O’neill?
O’Neill, who was sworn in as HHS deputy secretary in June, worked with the agency in the 2000s as the principal associate deputy secretary, leading food safety regulation reforms at the Food and Drug Administration before transitioning into investing. O’Neill’s investment ventures have been closely tied with billionaire PayPal and Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel, who donated to Trump in 2016 and Vice President JD Vance in 2022. O’Neill served as the Thiel Foundation’s CEO from 2009 to 2012 and was managing director at Thiel’s venture capital firm, Mithril Capital, from 2012 to 2019. In 2016, O’Neill said drug efficacy should be proven after legalization, suggesting the FDA should approve “drugs after their sponsors have demonstrated safety—and let people start using them, at their own risk, but not much risk of safety.” O’Neill has claimed to be “very strongly pro-vaccine.”
Crucial Quote
Houry noted the “devastation that’s happening to our staff, our campus, the programs,” telling staffers “we won’t forget you, we’re just now going to really advocate for the great work you all do.”
Tangent
The walkout follows a shooting earlier this month at the CDC’s headquarters, where a gunman fired hundreds of bullets at the building in an attack that left a Dekalb County police officer dead.
Key Background
The Health and Human Services Department announced Monarez’s ouster from the CDC on Thursday, claiming she was “no longer” with the agency before her attorneys contested the announcement. Mark S. Zaid, one of Monarez’s attorneys, said the director “has neither resigned nor received notification from the White House that she has been fired,” alleging Monarez was “targeted” by the Trump administration for refusing to “rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts she chose” to protect “the public over serving a political agenda.” The White House later announced it terminated Monarez as director, though her attorneys challenged the ouster again, claiming only President Donald Trump had the authority to fire her. Monarez was confirmed as director less than a month ago. Her pending departure is part of a turbulent time for the CDC, which recently laid off 600 employees and was targeted in a shooting carried out by a suspect who took issue with COVID-19 vaccines, according to authorities. The CDC is also undergoing changes to vaccine policy headed by Kennedy, a well-documented vaccine skeptic who fired all members of the agency’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and withdrew the CDC’s recommendation for healthy children to receive COVID-19 vaccinations.
Further Reading
White House Confirms CDC Director Susan Monarez’s Firing—Her Lawyer Pushes Back Again (Forbes)
CDC Sends Termination Notices To 600 Employees, Including 100 Working In Violence Prevention (Forbes)
InnovationRx: Shooting At The CDC Highlights The Perils Of Health Misinformation (Forbes)
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