Who is Jim O’Neill? CDC chief set to bolster RFK Jr plan to remake vaccine policy | Robert F Kennedy Jr

The White House has chosen a superior assistant to the Secretary of Health, Robert F Kennedy Jr, to temporarily direct the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – an appointment which should strengthen Kennedy’s objectives to redo the federal vaccine policy.

Jim O’Neill, an investor in biotechnology and discourse editor of the health service during the George W Bush administration, as an acting director of the agency who supervises the recommendations of the vaccines, confirmed a White House official at the Guardian.

The appointment of O’Neill follows the dismissal of the expert in infectious diseases Susan Monarez as director of the CDC, after refusing to resign under pressure from Kennedy and her allies in what her lawyers have called “targeted” reprisals for refusing to support non -scientific directives. His dismissal caused trouble in the best public health agency in the United States, and at least three senior officials also left them protest.

The agency has been paralyzed in recent weeks, the staff still in shock from mass layoffs and a shooting this month at the agency’s headquarters who killed a police officer. Meanwhile, Kennedy – an eminent anti -vaccine defender for two decades – had dismissed the main leaders of the agency and recently reconstructed a panel of experts on vaccinations.

Monarez, who was confirmed by the Senate as CDC director less than a month ago, was considered by agency staff and external experts as someone who could potentially help moderate the anti-vaccine day of Kennedy.

O’Neill, unlike Monarez, has no training in medicine or science of infectious diseases. He is a former speech editor for the Department of Health, during the Bush years, who worked for the technological investor and megadonor conservative Peter Thiel.

During the cocovated pandemic, O’Neill expressed public support to unproven treatments which were not supported by scientific evidence, in particular ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, as well as vitamin D as a supposed “prophylaxis”.

He has also published a certain number of conspiratorial theories on social networks, in particular the baseless affirmation that “the name #covid was chosen to hide the origin of the virus. This name made the study more difficult and probably slowed down the answer. ”

In the coming weeks, the CDC should hold a meeting of its vaccine advisers and O’Neill should play a key role. The process could lead to new restrictive guidelines on which Americans will be allowed to receive updated covored vaccines.

Senator Bill Cassidy, a doctor who chairs the health, education, labor and pensions committee of the Senate, called the Vaccines Advisory Committee to “report indefinitely” his meeting scheduled in September, in the middle of chaos to the CDC.

“If the meeting takes place, the recommendations made should be dismissed as lacking in legitimacy given the gravity of allegations and current disorders in CDC leadership,” Cassidy said in a statement.

O’Neill can only serve as an acting 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 Ministry of Health and Social Services, O’Neill insisted that he was “pro-Vaccin”, but the hearings democrats expressed skepticism, given the close to O’Neill with Kennedy.

The news of the appointment of O’Neill aroused criticism among health professionals. ATUL GAWANDE, surgeon, author and public health expert asked: “Is America short of real health practitioners with demonstrated experience of improving public health results?”

“Or maybe,” he added, “it’s just those who are ready to betray the principles and beneficiaries of public health that Trump and RFK Jr want them to do.”

Lauren Gambino contributed the reports