President Donald Trump handed the top job at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s deputy after heated clashes on vaccine policy triggered an exodus from the agency.
Deputy Health Secretary Jim O’Neill has been tapped to serve as acting CDC director, an administration official told the Daily Beast Thursday. The Washington Post was the first to report the appointment.
O’Neill replaces Susan Monarez, a microbiologist and infectious diseases researcher nominated by Trump who was axed after less than a month on the job. When her lawyers refuted a CDC statement indicating that she was no longer director, the White House stepped in to kick her out.
“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,” Monarez’s lawyers said. “For that, she has been targeted.”
The Trump administration was blunt in its response. “As her attorney’s statement makes abundantly clear, Susan Monarez is not aligned with the president’s agenda of Making America Healthy Again,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai said.
Monarez’s attorneys accused Kennedy, a notorious vaccine skeptic, and the Health Department of “weaponizing public health for political gain and putting millions of American lives at risk.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to Monarez’s lawyers for comment on O’Neill’s appointment.
Her termination set off a wave of high-profile resignations, including CDC chief medical officer Dr. Debra Houry; director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases Dr. Demetre Daskalakis; director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases Dr. Daniel Jernigan; and director of the Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance and Technology Dr. Jen Layden.
The CDC bloodbath followed Kennedy’s overhaul in June of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, a panel that provides recommendations for vaccine use.
“Their desire to please a political base will result in death and disability of vulnerable children and adults,” Daskalakis, one of the CDC officials who left, said of the agency’s leadership. “Their base should be the people they serve, not a political voting bloc.”
The appointment of O’Neill paves the way for the forceful implementation of Kennedy’s controversial MAHA agenda.
O’Neill served in senior roles at the Health Department under the George W. Bush administration before becoming managing director of the hedge fund Clarium Capital. During his time in Silicon Valley, he was CEO of the Thiel Foundation and co-founded the Thiel Fellowship, a grant program launched by billionaire investor Peter Thiel.
O’Neill told senators during his confirmation hearing in May that he strongly supported vaccines, though he criticized the CDC and the Biden administration over their pandemic response and vaccine mandate for federal workers.
“I’m very strongly pro-vaccine. I’m an adviser to a vaccine company, I support the CDC vaccine schedule,” he said. “If confirmed, I’ll help reform outdated rules, pursue transparency and gold standard science, and champion healthy lifestyles and prevention so Americans can thrive.”
Hours before his new job was reported on Thursday, O’Neill reposted on X a lengthy diatribe by health adviser Calley Means.
“President Trump and Secretary Kennedy aren’t responsible for our public health crisis. They are responsible for identifying it and channeling the overwhelming (and correct) cry from Americans for reform,” Means wrote. “If CDC employees want to defend the status quo and aren’t aligned with a reform, they should resign.”
Hundreds of CDC staff and protesters walked out of the agency’s Atlanta headquarters on Thursday in a show of support for the top officials who resigned.
Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, who resigned from his position as director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases on Wednesday, told the Daily Beast that he had concerns about O’Neill taking on the CDC role.
“I am also concerned that, you know, he is going to go in there like a wrecking ball, and that’s exactly not what CDC needs right now,” he said.
“Right now, CDC would benefit from strong, empathetic leadership, and I hope that he’s able to provide that.”
He also addressed the issue of having an acting CDC director who is a non-scientist.
“We did go many, many, many, many months without a director, and the decisions were being made by a non-scientist, and really the cornerstone of that experience was great stagnation.”
Speaking of O’Neill’s history of working for tech billionaire Peter Thiel, Daskalakis said, “I’m worried that, you know, a public health agency is a lot different than a battery company or sort of a foray in Silicon Valley and hedge funds.”
