Jay Bhattacharya, the Director of the National Institute of Health, will also serve as acting head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the White House said Thursday.
The announcement came as part of a leadership restructuring at the Department of Health and Human Services. Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dismissed HHS’s deputy secretary, Jim O’Neill last week, who was also serving as acting director of the CDC.
The department’s General Counsel Mike Stuart was also dismissed as part of what officials said was a plan to begin “muscling up the management team,” the agency said.
A White House official told Politico on Wednesday that Trump will name O’Neill to lead the National Science Foundation.
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It’s unclear how long Bhattacharya is expected to hold both roles. HHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
CDC has struggled to retain leadership under the second Trump administration. O’Neill was appointed to the acting director role by Trump in August after Kennedy removed the agency’s director, Susan Monarez, who pushed back against his vaccine policies. The White House later said she was “not aligned with the president’s agenda of Making America Healthy Again.”
A former CDC official who departed from the agency after Monarez’s firing, Demetre Daskalakis, told Politico that the agency required strong individual leadership to carry out its responsibilities.
“Seems like he has his plate full over at NIH. CDC and public health are not an add-on,” Daskalakis told Politico. “The agency is collapsing and needs dedicated leadership.”
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