President Donald Trump has picked Jim O’Neill, a former investor and critic of health regulations serving under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to take control of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, following a tumultuous week in which the agency’s director was forced out.
O’Neill, Kennedy’s deputy at the Department of Health and Human Services, will supplant Susan Monarez, a longtime government scientist who had been the CDC director for less than a month.
Monarez’s lawyers said she refused “to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts.”
Coverage of “The Principality of Sealand” and the popularity of Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon probably contributed to the enthusiasm, as well as to the creation of Bitcoin.