FDA Commissioner Marty Makary resigns

The commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, Marty Makary, resigned on Tuesday, President Donald Trump said.

Talking with reporters this afternoon before heading on his trip to China, the president praised Makary as “a terrific guy” and “a friend of mine” but said that he was “having some difficulties.”

“He’s a wonderful man, and he’s going to be off, and the assistant, the deputy, is taking over temporally, until we find — everybody wants that job,” Trump said. “It’s a very important job.”

A little more than an hour later, Trump posted what appears to be Makary’s resignation text to the president on his Truth Social account.

“It’s been the honor of a lifetime to serve as your FDA Commissioner,” the note said. “I am forever grateful.”

A senior administration official told MS NOW that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. drove the decision to force Makary out, and that Makary has not fought to stay since reports first surfaced on Friday that the president signed off on a plan to remove him.

The official added that Kyle Diamantas, deputy commissioner for food, will be interim FDA chief and that the search for a permanent director has already begun. That search is being led by Chris Klomp, HHS’s chief counselor, who also led the search for the new CDC director earlier this year.

Makary is the latest in a string of high-profile Trump administration officials to depart from his role. The president ousted Attorney General Pam Bondi and former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and former Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer resigned in the face of mounting scandals.

Makary, who worked as a physician before he was confirmed as FDA commissioner in March 2025, has served as a key ally to Kennedy and the enactment of his “Make America Healthy Again” agenda. But his term has been a rocky one, sparking clashes with health officials on vaccines and other issues and with abortion-rights activists over a promised “safety review” of mifepristone, one of the two pills used in medication abortions.

Makary helped institute significant vaccine-related policy changes while at the FDA, including enacting stricter guidelines for the approval of new vaccines and boosters, changing policy around who could serve on advisory committees, installing vaccine skeptics at FDA centers and blocking the publication of studies that found Covid-19 and shingles vaccines to be safe.

A frequent critic of public health officials and measures during the Covid pandemic, Makary has publicly encouraged most childhood vaccines, but he took aim at Covid vaccines for children — defying Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers and data showing thousands of children were hospitalized with Covid in 2025, many with no underlying medical conditions.

“There’s no evidence healthy kids need it today,” Makary said when HHS announced it would stop recommending the Covid vaccine for pregnant women and healthy children.

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Makary also embraced conspiracy theories about U.S. health agencies while at Kennedy’s HHS. His unfounded claims included accusing the National Institutes of Health of funding a lab that “brewed up a virus that killed 20 million people,” referring to Covid; maintaining, without evidence, that healthy children had been killed by Covid vaccines and that former President Joe Biden’s FDA had suppressed the data; and asserting that Lyme disease was developed as a U.S. military weapon on an island off the Connecticut coast.

Makary also backed Kennedy’s pushes advising pregnant women not to take Tylenol and antidepressants.

But reports have suggested Makary came under scrutiny recently by both Trump and some of his allies, who were frustrated that the FDA commissioner had not adequately prioritized their various concerns.

The Wall Street Journal reported this month that Trump was frustrated that Makary had not moved quickly enough to approve flavored vapes and nicotine products, which are popular among young MAGA voters. A White House spokesperson told the Journal that Trump was “thrilled with [Makary’s] accomplishments.”

Makary has also infuriated ardent opponents of abortion rights, who have accused him of slow-walking a “safety review” of mifepristone, one of the two pills used in medication abortions. Bloomberg reported that Makary was delaying the review until after the November midterm elections, though federal officials denied that.

Rolling back telehealth access to mifepristone has been a major goal of anti-abortion Republicans as medication abortions by telehealth have surged in recent years. In early May, Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the anti-abortion group SBA Pro-Life America, reiterated her call for Makary to be fired “immediately.”

Last year, the Journal reported that administration officials, including Kennedy, discussed scaling back Makary’s role at the agency in light of management concerns. Spokespeople for both the White House and HHS disputed the Journal’s report.

Sydney Carruth contributed to this report.