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Top RFK Jr. Deputy Jim O’Neill Named Acting CDC Director After Previous Head Fired
The White House named Jim O’Neill, a top deputy of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention after firing Susan Monarez the day before.
O’Neill, who was the deputy HHS secretary, will replace Monarez on an interim basis, a Trump administration official confirmed on Aug. 28 to USA TODAY, after Monarez was fired following a dispute with Kennedy over vaccination policy. In his current role, O’Neill oversees all operations in the sprawling HHS department.
Monarez’s ouster, which her attorneys have contested, came less than one month after the Senate confirmed her to the role. Her dismissal was followed by resignations from three other top CDC officials in protest of Kennedy’s leadership, including his direction on vaccines. Kennedy is a longtime vaccine skeptic. O’Neill’s promotion was first reported by the Washington Post.
Attorneys for Monarez said she was targeted by Kennedy because she “refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts.” The lawyers told USA TODAY she is weighing legal action to challenge her termination, arguing that only President Donald Trump can fire the CDC director — a presidential-appointed, Senate-confirmed officer — not a White House official or Kennedy.
HHS, Department of Education Announce Nutrition Reforms
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), along with the U.S. Department of Education, announced this week an initiative urging medical education organizations to implement extensive nutrition education and training. Each year, 1 million Americans die from diet-related diseases, even though the U.S. spends over $4 trillion annually on chronic disease and mental care, an HHS press release states.
“Although all medical schools claim to include nutrition in their curricula, most medical students report receiving no formal nutrition education throughout their entire training,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a statement.
The HHS is calling for reform of nutrition education across the medical education industry. The department believes there is a critical gap in health care training, and these reforms are designed to ensure that future and current doctors possess the essential knowledge to provide nutritional guidance to all patients. According to Kennedy, only 15% of doctors say that they feel competent to give nutrition advice.
Did the Government Poison a City? Inside the Army’s Secret Tests in St. Louis
The summer of 1953 in St. Louis was relentless. The heat beat down on the brick facade of Pruitt-Igoe, the air heavy, clinging to 33 concrete towers that almost seemed to hold the sun captive. Children played outside, the shouts of their games echoing between high-rises. And then the fog would come. It hissed from nozzles on vehicles that rolled slowly down the streets. It drifted from rooftops, where “maintenance men” had stood installing them just days earlier, wearing protective gear.
A cloud that hung thick in the air — clinging to skin, seeping into lungs, leaving behind a chemical tang. James Caldwell, who grew up in Pruitt-Igoe, said he remembers chasing after it as a child. “It was summertime, it was hot, we’d run through it as fast as we could and try to just cool ourselves off. It stuck to you,” said Caldwell. “It was a regular flatbed truck, but it had a big machine on the back, and it had a big nozzle that sprayed a fog.
You couldn’t even see through it; it was that thick, and it would adhere to our skin. And as far as the guys on top of the buildings, they tried to portray them to us as maintenance workers, but what are the maintenance workers doing in a hazmat suit? They had masks and goggles.” For Jacquelyn Russell, the memory of the fog that moved like a ghost was visceral. “It was such a sickening, nauseating … it was horrible. It would drive real slow. …You couldn’t see through it, that’s how thick it was. It’s a sickening smell, it’s something chemical.”
EPA Insider’s Policy Reversal Could Shift PFAS Cleanup Costs From Industry to Taxpayers
Environmental Health News reported:
A former chemical industry lawyer now serving in a senior U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) role has moved to undo a Biden-era rule that would hold polluters financially accountable for toxic PFAS contamination, internal documents show.
Steven Cook, a senior EPA official and former industry attorney, proposed repealing a rule he once opposed in court that designates certain PFAS as hazardous, potentially sparing chemical companies billions in cleanup costs. Internal agency documents reveal that Cook’s recommendation came shortly after meetings with industry groups challenging the rule, prompting a reversal in EPA staff guidance from supporting the regulation to advising its repeal.
Critics say Cook’s role represents a conflict of interest and part of a broader rollback effort by the Trump administration to weaken environmental protections in favor of industry. “If they overturn this, it would leave the public responsible for cleaning up, not the companies that knowingly polluted the land.” — Tracey Woodruff, researcher at the University of California San Francisco.
