White House names deputy health secretary Jim O’Neill acting CDC director
In the sudden absence of the usually ubiquitous Donald Trump, a Trump administration official has confirmed to the Guardian by email that the White House has picked deputy health secretary Jim O’Neill to serve as acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
O’Neill, a biotech investor and former speechwriter for the health department during the George W Bush administration, will replace microbiologist Susan Monarez until a new permanent director is confirmed by the Senate.
Monarez, who was confirmed less than a month ago, was the first non-physician to lead the premier US public health agency since 1953.
O’Neill, who worked for Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel for a decade after his brief tenure in the Bush administration, is not a medical doctor or a scientist of any kind.
Key events
Closing summary
This concludes our live coverage of the second Trump administration, a rare day in which Donald Trump himself has been absent from view as chaos descended at the nation’s leading public health agency. We will be back on Friday but in the meantime, here’s latest:
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The White House confirmed that the deputy health secretary, Jim O’Neill, a biotech investor and former speechwriter, will serve as acting CDC director until a Senate-confirmed replacement for the ousted Susan Monarez is in place.
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Hundreds of staffers rallied outside the CDC headquarters in Atlanta to support vaccine research and the public health leaders who resigned or were fired by the Trump administration. Three of the senior leaders who resigned, Debra Houry, Demetre Daskalakis and Daniel Jernigan, spoke to the crowd.
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Houry, who served as chief medical officer and deputy director for program and science at the CDC, said that she, Daskalakis and Jernigan agreed to leave together because of their work on vaccine science and outbreaks. “We have reached the tipping point and we knew it was a powerful statement for the three of us to do this together,” Houry said.
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Jernigan, one of the three CDC leaders to resign in protest on Wednesday, said that the last straw for him was being forced to re-examine the false claim that vaccines cause autism, as part of an effort by Robert F Kennedy Jr, the anti-vaccine health secretary, to find a link to autism.
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Senator Bill Cassidy, a physician who chairs the Senate’s health, education, labor and pensions committee, called for a vaccine advisory panel to indefinitely postpone its scheduled September meeting. “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,” the senator said.
RFK Jr’s push to link vaccines to autism helped convince CDC leaders to resign
In interviews on Thursday with Reuters and the Washington Post, Dr Daniel Jernigan, one of the three CDC leaders to resign in protest on Wednesday, said that the last straw for him was being forced to re-examine the false claim that vaccines cause autism.
The health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, promised “announcements” in September on what has caused a spike in autism at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday.
Jernigan, whose department oversaw the vaccine safety group, said that he was “asked to revise and to review and change studies” about vaccine safety data by Kennedy’s aides, Lyn Redwood and David Geier, anti-vaccine activists who promote a debunked link with autism.
Redwood, former leader of the Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine group founded by Kennedy that has featured the parents of a Texas girl who died of measles in its campaign against the MMR vaccine, is listed as an expert and Geier as a senior data analyst in the health department employee database.
Jernigan said a request for Geier to be given access to vaccine safety data prompted him to raise patient privacy and ethical concerns with senior officials in the health department.
“I was told was that the requests were legally supported and that that was enough. But for me, that’s just not enough,” Jernigan said. “I have come to that point where I’m not able to fulfil the duties that I have as a public health professional.”
Dr Debra Houry, who resigned as the CDC’s chief medical officer, said she and her colleagues had become aware that vaccine advisers appointed by Kennedy, a longtime critic of vaccines, were making recommendations before reviewing data.
“For us, that’s problematic,” Houry said in an interview with Reuters. “As scientists, you should never know in advance what you want the data to show.”
Dr Demetre Daskalakis, who stepped down as the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases on Wednesday, said that he believes the goal of Kennedy and his close advisers is “to create chaos and more mistrust of vaccines, so that there is less demand for vaccines, and then over time, they can demonstrate that there’s less need” for federal vaccine subsidies.
Elizabeth Warren remains unimpressed by Jim O’Neill, who told her RFK Jr was ‘doing a great job’ on measles outbreak
Senator Elizabeth Warren responded to the news that the deputy health secretary, Jim O’Neill, has been named acting director of the CDC on Thursday by drawing attention to his confirmation hearing in May, when he told the Massachusetts Democrat that Robert F Kennedy Jr was “doing a great job” dealing with the measles outbreak in Texas, which had turned deadly in the unvaccinated Russian Mennonite community.
Warren shared a clip of O’Neill making those remarks to her during the hearing on social media on Thursday, with the comment: “Donald Trump is purging the CDC leadership and putting in charge the guy who thought RFK Jr. was doing a ‘great job’ after measles cases hit a record high. These fools can’t be trusted with your health.”
White House names deputy health secretary Jim O’Neill acting CDC director
In the sudden absence of the usually ubiquitous Donald Trump, a Trump administration official has confirmed to the Guardian by email that the White House has picked deputy health secretary Jim O’Neill to serve as acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
O’Neill, a biotech investor and former speechwriter for the health department during the George W Bush administration, will replace microbiologist Susan Monarez until a new permanent director is confirmed by the Senate.
Monarez, who was confirmed less than a month ago, was the first non-physician to lead the premier US public health agency since 1953.
O’Neill, who worked for Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel for a decade after his brief tenure in the Bush administration, is not a medical doctor or a scientist of any kind.
A federal judge ruled on Thursday that Kari Lake, a senior adviser to the US Agency for Global Media, does not have the power to fire the director of Voice of America, the congressionally funded news outlet.
US district judge Royce Lamberth, who was nominated by Ronald Reagan, ruled that Michael Abramowitz cannot be removed from his position without the approval of the majority of the International Broadcasting Advisory Board.
In June, layoff notices were sent to more than 600 employees of Voice of America and the government agency that oversees it. Abramowitz was placed on administrative leave along with almost the entire Voice of America staff. He was told he would be fired effective this Sunday.
Lamberth concluded that firing Abramowitz would be “plainly contrary to law”.
“The defendants’ own representations, in and out of court, indicate that they have already effectively removed Abramowitz from his role as director,” the judge wrote.
Lake, who told a congressional panel that the agency is “rotten to the core”, told NPR that the administration intends to appeal “this absurd ruling.”
In addition to Voice of America, the agency staffs and operates Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia and Radio Martí, which delivers Spanish-language news to Cuba.
The networks, which together reach an estimated 427 million people, were founded during the cold war to provide news and information to people living in repressive societies and to extend US influence.
Education department calls all-gender bathrooms in one Denver high school illegal ‘sex discrimination’
Donald Trump’s education secretary, Linda McMahon, might have laid off nearly half the Department of Education’s staff, but she has directed the remaining employees to stay laser-focused on one of the president’s main educational priorities: punishing schools that make allowances for transgender students.
That’s why, on Thursday, the department announced that its office for civil rights had concluded an investigation into the apparently pressing issue of all-gender bathrooms in Denver public schools, and of allowing students to use bathrooms corresponding with their gender identity.
The civil rights office found that the bathroom policies in the schools violated Title IX protections against sex-based discrimination.
The finding followed an unprecedented investigation of Denver’s East high school that marked a sharp departure from the department’s investigations during previous administrations.
The investigation in Denver began after the school district converted a girls’ restroom into an all-gender restroom while leaving another bathroom on the same floor exclusive to boys in January. The school district has said that was done as a result of a student-led process and that the bathroom had 12ft-tall partitions (3.6 meters) for privacy and security.
The school district later added a second all-gender restroom on the same floor, which it said was meant to address concerns of unfairness. At the time, it said that students would continue to have access to gender-specific restrooms and single-stall, all-gender bathrooms.
The education department said it was giving the school district a chance to voluntarily make changes, including converting multi-stall, all-gender bathrooms back to ones designated by gender, within 10 days or risk unspecified enforcement action.
It also wants the district to use biology-based definitions for the words “male” and “female” in all policies and practices related to Title IX and to rescind any policies or guidance allowing students to use bathrooms based on their gender identity rather than their biological sex.
Craig Trainor, the acting assistant secretary of the department’s civil rights office, referred to the Denver school district’s policies as an endorsement of “self-defeating gender ideology”.
Denver public schools officials said they had received the results of the investigation and were “determining our next steps”.
Thiel ally named to lead CDC is not a doctor, or a scientist of any kind
When Susan Monarez was confirmed by the Senate as CDC director less than a month ago, she was the first non-physician to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention since 1953, and only the second ever to not be a medical doctor.
But Monarez holds a doctorate in microbiology and did postdoctoral work in immunology at Stanford University school of medicine. (The non-MD director in 1952 was a public health scientist and world-renowned authority on malaria.)
Her replacement as acting director of the US public health agency, Jim O’Neill, is not a medical doctor or a scientist of any kind. He is a former speechwriter for the health department, who went on to work for the tech investor Peter Thiel.
O’Neill’s work included helping establish the Thiel Fellowship, a two-year program for young people who agree to skip or drop out of college in exchange for a $200,000 grant.
When O’Neill, a critic of the CDC’s work in combatting the Covid pandemic, was sworn in as deputy health secretary in June, Robert F Kennedy Jr cited his “extensive experience in Silicon Valley and government”, not any public health experience or scientific credentials.
During the Covid pandemic, O’Neill voiced public support on then-Twitter 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, 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.”
News of O’Neill’s appointment led Atul Gawande, a surgeon, author and public health expert, to ask: “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.”
19 Democratic governors condemn ‘chaotic federal interference in our states’ National Guard’
As Donald Trump threatens to expand federal control over cities and states run by elected Democratic officials by deploying the national guard, 19 of the 23 Democratic governors issued a joint statement on Thursday condemning his actions.
“The President’s threats and efforts to deploy a state’s National Guard without the request and consent of that state’s governor is an alarming abuse of power, ineffective, and undermines the mission of our service members,” the governors said.
The statement comes as Trump hints that his next targets for federal intervention may include two heavily Democratic cities: Chicago and Baltimore.
“This chaotic federal interference in our states’ National Guard must come to an end,” the governors added.
The signatories included several potential candidates for the 2028 presidential nomination, including: Wes Moore of Maryland, Gavin Newsom of California, JB Pritzker of Illinois, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan. The four Democratic governors who did not join the statement include the party’s 2024 nominee for vice-president, Tim Walz of Minnesota, as well as Katie Hobbs of Arizona, Ned Lamont of Connecticut and Josh Green of Hawaii.
White House picks top aide to RFK Jr as interim CDC director
The White House has picked an aide to health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr as acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
News of the temporary appointment was first reported by the Washington Post.
The aide is Jim O’Neill, currently the deputy health secretary. A former speechwriter for the health department in the George W Bush administration, O’Neill then worked for Silicon Valley investor, and JD Vance backer, Peter Thiel for a decade.
In 2020, O’Neill’s frequent tweets on the Covid pandemic included this comment about China’s wildlife trade: “It’s almost like the communists want to spread disease.”
He also called Facebook Orwellian for announcing that it would direct users who spread misinformation about the virus to the World Health Organisation.
Senator Bill Cassidy calls for CDC meeting on Covid vaccines to be postponed amid turmoil
Senator Bill Cassidy, a physician who chairs the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, just called for a vaccine advisory panel to indefinitely postpone its scheduled September meeting.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which was reshaped by the health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, in June, when he fired all 17 of its members and replaced them with a smaller number of experts, including several Covid vaccine critics, was expected to meet 18 September to decide on whether or not to approve updated Covid vaccines.
In a statement on Thursday, attributed by his office to “Dr Cassidy”, the Republican senator and longtime vaccine advocate who reluctantly voted to confirm Kennedy as health secretary, said:
“Serious allegations have been made about the meeting agenda, membership, and lack of scientific process being followed for the now announced September ACIP meeting. These decisions directly impact children’s health and the meeting should not occur until significant oversight has been conducted. 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”.
The new vaccine advisory panel members chosen by Kennedy, an anti-vaccination advocate, include Retsef Levi, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, who has baselessly claimed that Covid vaccines are killing young people and should be stopped and Robert Malone, who did early on mRNA technology but beame a hero to anti-vaxxers during the pandemic by claiming, without evidence, that mRNA Covid vaccines might cause cancer.
Bernie Sanders calls for bipartisan investigation into firing of CDC director
Senator Bernie Sanders, ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) committee, has called for a bipartisan congressional investigation into Susan Monarez’s firing as director of the CDC.
In a letter to his Republican counterpart, senator Bill Cassidy, Sanders called the termination “reckless” and “dangerous”. He urged Cassidy to open a bipartisan investigation, and require secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr to testify at a hearing in front of the HELP committee.
“It is absolutely imperative that trust in vaccine science not be undermined. The well being of millions of people are at stake,” Sanders wrote.
Yesterday, Cassidy posted on X that the CDC “departures” would require “oversight”.
Debra Houry calls out RFK Jr’s vaccine messaging in warning on public health
Robert Mackey
Debra Houry, who served as chief medical officer and deputy director for program and science at the CDC, said that she, Daskalakis and Jernigan agreed to leave together because of their work on vaccine science and outbreaks.
“We have reached the tipping point and we knew it was a powerful statement for the three of us to do this together,” Houry said.
She encouraged reporters to “report on the harms that are being done by losing our staff,” and called out secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr’s vaccine messaging. “Look at measles, we have the highest number of cases in the US in 30 years because we had unvaccinated populations, and a secretary that’s promoted vitamins over vaccines,” she said.
