The White House has appointed Jim O’Neill as the new leader of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) following the ouster of Director Susan Monarez. O’Neill, a senior Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) official with deep ties to President Trump donor Peter Thiel, will take over the agency amid an exodus of its leadership and panic across the public health world. Kennedy and the White House have said the CDC needs to align with the administration’s “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) agenda and shift away from a focus on vaccines.
O’Neill, who does not come from a medical background, called the CDC the “beating heart of public health in America.” He emphasized the Trump administration’s efforts to rebuild trust and refocus the agency on its core mission of keeping America safe from infectious disease. He also highlighted the investment 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.
O’Neill served as principal associate deputy secretary at the HHS during the George W. Bush administration before beginning his career as a tech investor. Prior to joining the second Trump administration, he was managing director at Thiel’s Mithril Capital Management and served as CEO of the Thiel Foundation. He was confirmed as deputy HHS secretary in June, about a month before Monarez was confirmed by the Senate. It is unclear how long O’Neill might remain in the interim CDC role or whether he’s a candidate for the permanent position.
Like Thiel, O’Neill has advocated restrained government intervention and a laissez-faire attitude toward federal regulation. In 2014, he called for pushing against the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) mission to consider the efficacy of drugs in its decision to approve them, saying the agency should only consider safety. O’Neill’s interest extends to the point of achieving “immortality,” arguing that investing wisely in life extension technologies would drive down prices and increase innovation.
The watchdog group Accountable US stated that O’Neill’s deep ties to Thiel and medical companies presented too many areas of conflict for him to be acting CDC director.
