White House taps top RFK Jr. deputy as acting CDC director

The White House on Thursday selected a top deputy of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to serve as acting head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention after a clash over vaccine policy ended in the departure of several agency leaders, according to two people familiar with the decision.

The selection of Jim O’Neill, currently the deputy secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services, as interim leader of the CDC, potentially clears a path for Kennedy to continue his efforts to overhaul federal vaccine policy after the agency’s previous leader, Susan Monarez, balked at his requests.

As deputy secretary, O’Neill helps oversee HHS’s sprawling operations and serves as a key aide to Kennedy. He will continue working as Kennedy’s deputy while helming the CDC, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss personnel decisions.

The White House on Wednesday fired then-director Monarez after she refused to resign amid pressure by Kennedy and his allies to change vaccine policy. Kennedy accused Monarez of obstructing the president’s agenda and said that it was imperative to review current vaccines and revise federal recommendations, according to people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.

A statement released by Monarez’s lawyers on Wednesday night said that Monarez “refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives.”

Her departure triggered the resignation of other senior officials at the agency, some of whom have decried Kennedy’s efforts to restrict access to vaccines and warned that the administration’s agenda will harm public health.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment about O’Neill’s selection. O’Neill did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

O’Neill, who served in the George W. Bush administration as a senior health official before becoming a close ally of investor Peter Thiel, was confirmed by the Senate in June to serve as deputy HHS secretary. As the acting CDC director, O’Neill is set to play a key role in the agency’s efforts to revise vaccine recommendations, with the CDC scheduled to hold a meeting of its vaccine advisers next month. That process, overseen by Kennedy, is expected to lead to narrower CDC guidance on which Americans should receive coronavirus vaccines.

Like Monarez, O’Neill is not a physician. As a Silicon Valley investor and entrepreneur, he worked on issues such as longevity, briefly serving as CEO of SENS Research Foundation, an antiaging organization. He was tapped in 2023 to serve on the board of directors for ADvantage Therapeutics, which is developing therapies to treat neurodegenerative conditions with a focus on Alzheimer’s disease.

O’Neill was a frequent critic of the CDC during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, arguing on social media that the agency had botched data collection, poorly communicated with the public and had too much influence.

Tevi Troy, who served as deputy HHS secretary during the George W. Bush administration, on Thursday described O’Neill as a tested health official, recalling their efforts to prepare for a potential influenza pandemic.

“He believes that CDC should focus on its core mission of combating dangerous communicable diseases, and I trust he will bring that perspective to his new role,” Troy said.

Some physicians and Democrats were publicly critical of the selection. Atul Gawande, a physician who helped oversee the Biden administration’s global health strategy, asked on social media why the Trump administration had again selected a non-physician to run the nation’s premier public health agency. Monarez was the first non-physician to head the CDC since 1953.

“Has America run out of actual health practitioners with demonstrated experience improving public health outcomes?” Gawande wrote in a post on X.

Pressed by lawmakers in his confirmation hearings in May about his public health beliefs, O’Neill said that he is a staunch supporter of vaccines.

“I’m very strongly pro-vaccine, I’m an adviser to a vaccine company, I support the CDC vaccine schedule,” he told senators in one exchange. But he also said that the federal government had overreached during the coronavirus response, and he criticized the Biden administration’s efforts to mandate coronavirus vaccines for federal workers.

Democrats in those hearings said they were skeptical that O’Neill would serve as a check on Kennedy, noting his praise for Kennedy’s controversial response to a measles outbreak and other parts of Kennedy’s agenda. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) and other lawmakers who pressed O’Neill to explain how he would advise Kennedy dismissed his answers as vague and evasive.

“We’re trying to determine what kind of advice this guy’s going to give, and all he can do is mumble around and say Kennedy is doing a great job,” said Warren.