The White Home rapidly named a brand new chief of the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention (CDC) after Well being and Human Providers Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pushed out Director Susan Monarez this week.
Jim O’Neill, a senior Division of Well being and Human Providers (HHS) official with deep ties to President Trump donor Peter Thiel, will take over the company amid an exodus of its management and panic throughout the general public well being world.
The longtime Silicon Valley investor has been a prime Kennedy deputy because the Trump administration has sought to enact its “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) agenda, whereas slashing workers and funding throughout well being businesses.
Kennedy and the White Home have stated the CDC must align with the administration’s MAHA priorities and shift away from a give attention to vaccines.
In his first public assertion since being chosen, O’Neill, who doesn’t come from a medical background, known as the CDC the “beating heart of public health in America.”
“During the previous administration, CDC lost public trust by manipulating health data to support a political narrative. The Trump administration is rebuilding trust and refocusing CDC on its core mission of keeping America safe from infectious disease,” O’Neill wrote on social platform X.
“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,” he added.
“We are helping the agency earn back the trust it had squandered. I look forward to working with CDC’s dedicated team and announcing additions to the senior leadership in the weeks ahead.”
O’Neill served in the course of the George W. Bush administration as principal affiliate deputy secretary on the HHS, earlier than starting his profession as a tech investor. Previous to becoming a member of the second Trump administration, he was managing director at Thiel’s Mithril Capital Administration and in addition served as CEO of the Thiel Basis.
He was confirmed as deputy HHS secretary in June, a few month earlier than Monarez was confirmed by the Senate. It is unclear how lengthy O’Neill would possibly stay within the interim CDC position or whether or not he is a candidate for the everlasting place.
Like Thiel, a libertarian who has lengthy advocated restrained authorities intervention, O’Neill has equally known as for a laissez-faire perspective towards federal regulation.
In a 2014 speech, O’Neill known as for pushing towards the Meals and Drug Administration’s (FDA) mission to contemplate the efficacy of medicine in its resolution to approve them, saying the company ought to solely contemplate security.
“We should reform FDA so that it’s approving 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 stated on the time.
As Bloomberg reported in 2016, O’Neill advocated making a freer marketplace for well being care services.
“Basically, because there’s not a free market in health care, people are suffering very significant health consequences that in a free market they would not suffer,” O’Neill stated, arguing it will drive down costs and improve innovation.
The MIT Expertise Assessment reported in June that O’Neill is deeply embedded within the “longevity” neighborhood, individuals who want to prolong the human lifespan. Thiel can be an ardent longevity fanatic. O’Neill was on the board of the anti-aging nonprofit basis SENS Analysis Basis.
O’Neill’s curiosity apparently extends to the purpose of reaching “immortality.”
“You can tell a lot about an era by listening to what people whine about,” O’Neill stated in the identical 2014 speech he advocated for much less FDA regulation. “If we invest wisely in life extension technologies, in 40 years, we’ll all be able to annoy our friends with complaints like ‘immortality almost never works.’”
The watchdog group Accountable US stated in a press release Friday that O’Neill’s deep ties to Thiel and medical firms introduced too many areas of battle for him to be performing CDC director.
“If made acting Director of the Trump CDC, Jim O’Neill would be in a prime position to ensure favorable outcomes for several medical industry startups he’s been financially linked to that have direct business before HHS and the CDC,” Accountable US Government Director Tony Carrk stated.
“How can American patients be sure that proper vetting of these companies would take place on O’Neill’s watch and that public health will be a higher priority over the profits of his former clients?” Carrk continued. “They can’t.”
Trump has but to personally touch upon Monarez’s ouster or the management disaster unfolding on the CDC. Attorneys representing Monarez resisted her ouster, saying solely Trump had last say on her removing.
The White Home stated Monarez was pushed out for not being totally aligned the MAGA agenda. Her legal professionals say she refused to “rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives.”
