By Yasmeen Abutaleb
WASHINGTON, May 12 (Reuters) – U.S. Food and Drug Commissioner Marty Makary resigned on Tuesday, President Donald Trump said, the latest leadership change at the federal health department which comes after weeks of public speculation and a mounting pressure campaign.
FDA Deputy Commissioner for Food Kyle Diamantas will lead the agency in an acting capacity, according to two sources familiar with the situation. Politico first reported the development.
“Marty is a terrific guy, but he’s going to go on and he’s going to lead a good life. He was having some difficulty,” Trump told reporters. “The assistant, the deputy is taking over temporarily until we find someone.”
Makary’s departure follows weeks of intensifying pressure from powerful Republicans, anti-abortion groups, and the Wall Street Journal editorial board, all while he clashed with top officials at the White House and Department of Health and Human Services, according to the sources and three other sources.
On Friday, Reuters and other outlets reported that Trump had signed off on a plan to fire him.
The White House has not yet found someone to replace Makary on a permanent basis, according to the first two sources and one of the three other sources. That, in large part, had delayed the White House’s plans to fire Makary on Friday, the three people said.
MAKARY CRITICIZED
Makary was criticized for actions including his handling of reintroducing flavored vapes into the U.S. market, a stalled abortion-pill review and public disagreements with drugmakers over reviews of potentially lifesaving medicines and vaccines.
The Journal’s editorial page has featured at least half a dozen op-eds blasting Makary for controversial drug rejections, including most recently of a cancer drug from Replimune, and calling for his ouster.
Makary, a Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine surgical oncologist who criticized vaccine mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic, was confirmed by U.S. Congress as FDA commissioner last March.
He oversaw a sharply smaller agency as thousands of employees were forced out. The FDA had five different vaccine chiefs in the span of a year, including one who was fired, hired back a month later, then left again less than a year after that.Â
SEARCHING FOR A CANDIDATE
The White House has exerted more control over the health agency in recent months and has sought more conventional candidates for top health jobs that could be confirmed by the Senate.
Among those under consideration are former FDA Commissioner Steve Hahn and former acting commissioner and assistant Health Secretary Brett Giroir, according to the three people.
Finding such candidates has often proven difficult, including in the search for an FDA head, as many are wary of working under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has espoused views, particularly on vaccines, that contradict scientific evidence. They would also be leading the agency after the staffing cuts and departures, the people said.
Trump allies, supporters of Kennedy’s Make America Health Again movement, conservative media, pharmaceutical companies, and anti-abortion groups have all taken public shots at Makary over the past few weeks.
One of the Wall Street Journal op-ed pieces asked whether any administration official had created more headaches for Trump than Makary, pointing to the FDA’s two rejections of Replimune’s melanoma therapy.
His tenure included a series of high-profile disputes ​over product reviews for vaccines, gene therapies and other rare-disease drugs. Replimune, after its drug’s second rejection, accused the FDA of contradicting positions the agency had expressed at a meeting in September.
(Reporting by Yasmeen Abutaleb, Gram Slattery, Daphne Psaledakis and Bhargav Acharya; Editing by Caitlin Webber and Bill Berkrot)
