On May 12, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Marty Makary resigned from his position. He will be immediately replaced by Kyle Diamantas, the top food official, as acting commissioner.
The Trump administration pinned Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) Jr. as the one who made the final call to remove Makary, an admission that he was coerced into giving up his role.
Makary’s ouster was months in the making. He was the target of anti-abortion groups over the issue of mifepristone access.
“Dr. Makary was uniquely destructive to the prolife movement,” [Senator Josh] Hawley posted on X Tuesday after POLITICO first reported the commissioner’s ouster.
“His resignation is an opportunity for the FDA to reset,” he added.
Politico
Pharmaceutical companies were also displeased with his handling of the drug approval process. Makary also made enemies of career officials and their allies, firing people such as Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research Director Peter Marks. Several others resigned. The FDA lost thousands of employees during the DOGE-era of the second Trump administration. Right-wing provocateur and informal Trump advisor Laura Loomer was also able to oust Vinay Prasad, an ally of Makary who wanted a pause on all shipments of the Duchenne muscular dystrophy gene therapy; Trump not only overruled Prasad, but ordered his dismissal after listening to Loomer and Republican senators.
While Prasad returned until the end of April, rare-disease drugmakers continued to pressure the FDA and oppose both him and Makary for wanting an extensive review of their drugs, which is the job of government. Prasad’s return was not enough to save Makary’s stature in the FDA.
Makary did not always side with science, however. His FDA refused to consider Moderna’s application for an mRNA flu vaccine, but reversed this stance days later.
Making matters worse for Makary in his last weeks as head of the FDA, Diamantas gained support from RFK Jr. He is not conventionally qualified to lead the FDA, as he lacks a medical degree. He legally represented Abbott, which was being litigated for its recalled infant formula. While Diamantas has agreed to recuse himself “from interacting with companies he previously worked with for one year after entering government,” he served corporate interests, which is his main appeal to the Trump administration.
Diamantas bizarrely defended ultra-processed foods by denying that it exists as a concept.
“A definition for ultra-processed foods is really hard,” Diamantas said at the time. “There’s not a great current definition for ultra-processed foods in our view.”
Politico
The nail in the coffin for Makary was when Trump got convinced by R.J. Reynolds, a tobacco firm, to put fruit-flavored vaping pods with nicotine on the market. Makary was reluctant to do so, and lost his job one week after the FDA legalized fruit-flavored vapes after a long ban.
