By Yasmeen Abutaleb and Jarrett Renshaw
WASHINGTON, May 8 (Reuters) – The White House signed off on a plan to fire U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary, according to sources familiar with the matter, in what could be the next leadership change within the federal health department.
The Wall Street Journal earlier on Friday first reported that President Donald Trump planned to fire Makary.
Two of the sources, who are advisers to the White House, said a decision was not final. A third source close to the White House said they were told the FDA commissioner “is done” and that Trump signed off.
“President Trump has assembled the most experienced and talented administration in history, an administration that continues to focus on delivering more historic victories for the American people,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the FDA, was not immediately available for comment.
MAKARY FACES MOUNTING CRITICISM
His firing would follow a series of controversies that drew criticism from Trump allies, supporters of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., conservative media, pharmaceutical companies and anti-abortion groups alike.
The conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board published more than half a dozen pieces criticizing Makary’s stewardship of the agency. One opinion piece asked whether any administration official had created more headaches for Trump than Makary, pointing to the FDA’s twice-repeated rejection of Replimune’s melanoma therapy RP1.
Makary in an interview on CNBC this week said that the scientists reviewing the drugs had made the decision, not him.
Makary has been under growing pressure to produce a safety review of the abortion pill. Anti-abortion activists were due to meet with White House officials on Friday amid their growing frustration that the government has not moved aggressively enough on restrictions on abortion access.
Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America president Marjorie Dannenfelser renewed her call this week to terminate Makary, saying his indifference was unacceptable to millions of pro-life voters.
Trump was also angered by Makary’s handling of flavored e-cigarettes, a product he had pledged to protect during his 2024 campaign, with the WSJ reporting that Trump rebuked Makary over the weekend for not approving them more quickly.
FINDING A REPLACEMENT
The White House is considering naming FDA Deputy Commissioner Kyle Diamantas, who heads up the agency’s food group, as acting commissioner of the agency to replace current head Marty Makary, according to one of the sources and an additional source.
Potential names being considered to be the actual nominee to run the agency include former FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn and former acting commissioner and assistant Health Secretary Brett Giroir, according to those two sources and a third source.
EXODUS OF EXPERIENCED REGULATORS
The agency under Kennedy and Makary has been mired in high-profile departures, feuds between top leaders, accusations of politicization and low morale, losing thousands of employees to layoffs and resignations and cycling through five directors of its drug center since January last year.
Along the way, the FDA lost experienced regulators including former senior biologics officials Peter Marks and Rachael Anatol, and drug evaluation figures Richard Pazdur and Jacqueline Corrigan-Curay.
Prasad, ousted as biologics division director last July only to be reinstated two weeks later, was recently involved in controversial rare disease treatment decisions before his final departure last month.
Makary’s departure would add to a series of leading officials who have left agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services, including top leaders at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health and others.
A surgical oncologist at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Makary was confirmed as FDA commissioner last March. He wrote bestselling books on healthcare costs and what he described as modern medicine’s failures, and has been one of the key advocates of the Make America Healthy Again movement backed by Kennedy.
(Reporting by Padmanabhan Ananthan in Bengaluru and Ahmed Aboulenein, Yasmeen Abutaleb, Bo Erickson and Jarrett Renshaw in Washington D.C. and Michael Erman in New York; Editing by Caroline Humer, Deepa Babington and Bill Berkrot)
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