As the agency rotates through a cast of leaders, it’s unclear when—or if—the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will get a permanent director under Donald Trump’s second term as president.
Following Jim O’Neill’s departure as acting CDC director last week, National Institutes of Health director Jay Bhattacharya will now lead both agencies temporarily. It’s the latest in a series of shakeups at Donald Trump’s CDC, which has lost about a quarter of its staff to mass layoffs carried out by Health and Human Services secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. last year.
Bhattacharya, a health economist with a medical degree who has never been a practicing physician, has been an