Jay Bhattacharya Named Acting Cdc Director

Jay Bhattacharya, the head of the National Institutes of Health, will become acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention following the dismissal last week of Jim O’Neill, according to a White House official and an administration official.

President Donald Trump will name O’Neill to lead the National Science Foundation, one of the officials said.

O’Neill, who was also deputy secretary of the Health and Human Services Department, was removed by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as part of a broader restructuring that elevated Chris Klomp, deputy administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, to chief counselor in charge of overseeing all HHS operations.

Administration officials framed last week’s restructuring as a way to “muscle up” ahead of a midterm elections cycle that will focus heavily on the Trump administration’s health policy moves, including a push to lower drug prices, which Klomp has overseen.

Kennedy also elevated Kyle Diamantas and Grace Graham to senior counselors of the Food and Drug Administration.

The New York Times first reported Bhattacharya’s new acting role.

The move comes as CDC has cycled through leadership over the past year.

Former Congressman Dave Weldon, who was vocally skeptical of vaccines, was the administration’s first pick to run the public health agency. But the White House pulled his nomination after it became clear he did not have the votes to win Senate confirmation.

The administration then nominated Susan Monarez, who had served as acting director, and she was Senate confirmed in July. But in August, Kennedy fired Monarez after she refused to rubber-stamp changes to the vaccine schedule, and elevated O’Neill.

The CDC, which recommends vaccines to the public, is at the heart of Kennedy’s most controversial changes to vaccine policy.

O’Neill, with Kennedy’s blessing, overhauled the vaccine schedule at the beginning of the year, removing meningitis, flu, hepatitis A and rotavirus from the agency’s list of routinely recommended vaccines.

Kennedy also fired and replaced all the members of a key CDC advisory panel in June, which gives the agency guidance on changes to the schedule. The new, more vaccine-skeptical panel voted to stop recommending flu shots with thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative that has long been a target of the anti-vaccine movement, but is considered safe by the medical establishment.

It also voted to downgrade the recommendations for the Covid-19 vaccine and the hepatitis B birth dose.

Some public health experts were skeptical about Bhattacharya’s ability to run both agencies effectively.

“Seems like he has his plate full over at NIH. CDC and public health are not an add-on,” Demetre Daskalakis, who quit as CDC’s director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases when Monarez was fired, told POLITICO.

“The agency is collapsing and needs dedicated leadership,” he added.

A current CDC official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, echoed that sentiment.

“I do think CDC deserves a dedicated leader,” said the official. “I am hopeful at least that he will be much more engaged than O’Neill ever was,” they said of Bhattacharya, but noted that is “not a high bar.”