WASHINGTON — Two top health officials are leaving their jobs amid a shakeup at the Department of Health and Human Services aimed at refocusing HHS on politically popular aspects of health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s agenda in advance of the midterm elections.
Deputy Secretary Jim O’Neill and General Counsel Mike Stuart are exiting a year into Kennedy’s reign, according to a person familiar with the matter. HHS and the White House didn’t respond to requests for comment on Friday. The news was first reported by Politico.
The White House directed the changes to overcome dysfunction at the agency that had been attributed, in part, to poor management, the person said. The new leaders, trusted by top administration officials, are expected to smooth out problems that have added to chaos during a period of historic upheaval.
The departures come as leaders of the MAHA movement make the case to the White House that they will be crucial to winning over key voters in the midterms, leading officials to home in on health policy issues that poll well.
Earlier this week, four political appointees were elevated into more senior roles. A White House official told STAT on Thursday, prior to the reporting on O’Neill and Stuart’s departures, that changes in the department were about focusing HHS on areas like drug pricing and food safety — notably, less divisive issues than the vast changes to vaccine policy Kennedy has pursued. But they denied any attempts from the White House to rein in the secretary.
The ouster of O’Neill adds to leadership turnover at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. O’Neill had been serving as acting director of the CDC since Aug. 28, the day after former director Susan Monarez was fired. O’Neill has taken on a variety of initiatives, including some of the changes to vaccine policy as well as publicly discussing alleged Medicaid fraud cases in states like Minnesota.
Stuart was a major part of the department’s efforts to root out fraud in federal health care programs. He told STAT in an interview earlier this month that more enforcement action was expected in the coming weeks against states, notably blue states, that the department has targeted with investigations. Stuart had also referred more than a dozen hospital systems and community health centers for investigations related to gender-affirming care.
Other staffing changes include making Chris Klomp, a former health IT CEO, chief counselor at HHS, overseeing “all operations of the department.” Klomp is also the head of the Center for Medicare and played a large role in the department’s push to lower drug prices. He joined a delegation of HHS officials, including Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz, last week in meeting with key Senate Republicans on drug pricing legislation, STAT reported. According to the White House official, Kennedy offered the new job to Klomp directly.
The White House official, granted anonymity to speak freely, said the changes HHS made to reduce the number of recommended childhood vaccines had addressed the president’s directive to revisit the childhood vaccine schedule.
The focus is now food, they said, and they praised HHS for leading “good policy wins” over the past year.
This year alone, HHS has launched an “Eat Real Food” campaign aimed at promoting its new dietary guidance, which calls on Americans to avoid ultraprocessed food. Boxer Mike Tyson appeared in a Super Bowl ad, paid for by the MAHA Alliance, touting the campaign and has since appeared in videos alongside Kennedy.
Other staffing changes include naming Kyle Diamantas and Grace Graham senior counselors for the Food and Drug Administration. Graham is the FDA’s deputy commissioner for policy and Diamantas, an attorney with ties to Donald Trump Jr., is deputy commissioner for human foods.
John Brooks, CMS’s chief policy and regulatory officer, will also be senior counselor. Brooks worked on drug reform at HHS during Trump’s first term.
Uncertainty at the CDC
The CDC, meanwhile, has only had a director for 28 days during the second Trump administration — the four weeks last summer between when Monarez was sworn into the job and her firing. For most of the period prior to her swearing in, the agency was without even an acting director, being run on day-to-day by a political appointee without medical training or a public health background.
In December, Ralph Abraham, a physician and Louisiana’s former surgeon general, was sworn in as principal deputy director of the agency. Abraham, who has asked CDC staff to address him as “Doc,” recently made headlines when he acknowledged he didn’t think it would be a big deal — ”it’s just the cost of doing business” — if the United States loses its measles elimination status later this spring because of ongoing spread of the highly infectious virus among pockets of unvaccinated people across the country.
The White House could name Abraham or a different Senate-confirmed official as acting director of the CDC, but if it does, it will limit the time he or she can serve in the post. Under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, a Senate-confirmed position like CDC director can only be held by an acting official for 210 days from the time the vacancy occurred. That time runs out in the fourth week of March.
Helen Branswell and Daniel Payne contributed reporting.
