A Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) official has been selected to serve as acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, several days after President Donald Trump fired the agency’s director.
Trump has chosen HHS Deputy Secretary Jim O’Neill as the CDC’s acting director, two administration officials told The Epoch Times on Aug. 29.
The CDC did not respond to a request for comment.
O’Neill worked in HHS during the George W. Bush administration, serving in various roles such as assistant deputy secretary. After departing the government in 2008, he worked on investments, including for the hedge fund Mithril Capital. O’Neill also co-founded the Thiel Fellowship in 2010.
Under a new law, the CDC director must be Senate-confirmed. Acting directors do not need Senate confirmation.
Monarez, over the summer, became the first CDC director since 1953 to not hold a medical degree.
O’Neill does not hold a medical degree or have medical training, but he said in his confirmation hearing that he has learned a lot about HHS and the health field during his time in the government and by working with entrepreneurs who are advancing research technologies and medicines.
O’Neill also said in the hearing that he is “very strongly pro-vaccine” and supports the CDC’s immunization schedules.
Under orders from Kennedy, the CDC in May stopped recommending COVID-19 vaccines for healthy children and pregnant women.
CDC advisers picked by Kennedy are also weighing whether to curtail recommendations for some other vaccines, including the Hepatitis B shot.
The Senate confirmed O’Neill in June as HHS deputy secretary in a 52–43 party-line vote, with all Republicans voting to confirm and all Democrats voting against.
Sen. Ashley Moody (R-Fla.) told O’Neill before the vote that she was “grateful you’re willing to come back into public service, using all that you have acquired, both in your government service and your private experience, to benefit Americans and their health.”
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said ahead of the vote that he was opposing the nominee because he had “gone out of his way to defend Robert Kennedy’s disastrous approach to preventable infectious diseases, like measles.”
After he was sworn in, O’Neill said in a statement that he was honored to return to HHS.
“All Americans deserve to be healthy, happy, and prosperous, and President Trump and Secretary Kennedy have the right vision and leadership to get us there,” he said at the time. “I’m eager to help my colleagues find the root causes of chronic disease, support families making healthy choices, and help businesses make health care more affordable and accessible. Together, all of us can make America healthy again.”
O’Neill previously criticized the CDC over how it redefined the word vaccine, and how the agency was holding back some data on COVID-19 cases among the vaccinated.