The White House has chosen a top aide to health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr to temporarily lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – an appointment that is expected to bolster Kennedy’s goals of remaking federal vaccine policy.
Jim O’Neill, a biotech investor and speechwriter for the health department during the George W Bush administration, was tapped as acting director of the agency that oversees vaccine recommendations, a White House official confirmed to the Guardian.
O’Neill’s appointment follows the firing of infectious disease expert Susan Monarez as the CDC director, after she refused to resign under pressure from Kennedy and his allies in what her lawyers have called a “targeted” retaliation for refusing to support unscientific directives. Her firing has prompted turmoil within the US’s top public health agency, and at least three top officials have also quit in protest.
The agency has been paralyzed in recent weeks, with staff still reeling from mass layoffs and a shooting this month at the agency headquarters that killed a police officer. Meanwhile, Kennedy – a prominent anti-vaccine advocate for two decades – had fired top agency leaders and recently reconstituted an expert panel on immunizations.
Monarez, who was confirmed by the Senate as CDC director less than a month ago, was viewed by agency staff and outside experts as someone who could potentially help moderate Kennedy’s anti-vaccine agenda.
O’Neill, unlike Monarez, has no training in medicine or infectious disease science. He is a former speechwriter for the health department, during the Bush years, who went on to work for the tech investor and conservative megadonor Peter Thiel.
During the Covid pandemic, O’Neill voiced public support for unproven treatments that were not supported by scientific evidence, including ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, as well as vitamin D as a supposed “prophylaxis”.
He also posted a number of conspiratorial theories on social media, including the baseless claim that “the name #COVID was chosen to conceal the origin of the virus. This name made it harder to study and probably slowed the response.”
In the coming weeks, the CDC is scheduled to hold a meeting of its vaccine advisers and O’Neill is expected to play a key role. The process could lead to new, restrictive guidelines on which Americans will be allowed to receive updated Covid vaccines.
Senator Bill Cassidy, a physician who chairs the Senate’s health, education, labor and pensions committee, called for the vaccine advisory panel to “indefinitely postpone” its scheduled September meeting, amid the chaos at the CDC.
“If the meeting proceeds, any recommendations made should be rejected as lacking legitimacy given the seriousness of the allegations and the current turmoil in CDC leadership,” Cassidy said in a statement.
O’Neill can only serve as an interim leader of the agency until a permanent director is confirmed by the Senate.
During confirmation hearings for his current post as deputy secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services, O’Neill insisted he was “pro-vaccine”, but Democrats in the hearings voiced skepticism, given O’Neill’s close allyship with Kennedy.
News of O’Neill’s appointment has sparked criticism among healthcare professionals. Atul Gawande, a surgeon, author and public health expert asked: “Has America run out of actual health practitioners with demonstrated experience improving public health outcomes?”
“Or maybe,” he added, “it is just ones willing to betray the tenets and beneficiaries of public health that Trump and RFK Jr want them to do.”
Lauren Gambino contributed reporting
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
