In a surprise announcement from the White House on Tuesday, former President Donald Trump confirmed that U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Marty Makary is departing his role, less than 15 months after he took office. The exit comes as Makary faced mounting pushback from both within the administration and outside groups over a series of high-profile policy disagreements.
Trump told reporters ahead of his departure for a state visit to China that Makary had been encountering professional difficulties, noting that a deputy commissioner would serve as acting head of the agency while the administration searches for a permanent successor. The president stopped short of clarifying whether Makary was fired or chose to resign, offering only a brief, warm assessment of his tenure: “He’s a great doctor, he’s a friend, and he’s going to go on and do well.”
A British-American surgeon who previously served on the faculty of Baltimore’s renowned Johns Hopkins University, Makary first rose to public attention as a leading voice for the Make America Healthy Again movement. Nominated by Trump to lead the FDA shortly after Trump won the 2024 presidential election, Makary was confirmed by the Senate in March 2025. At the time of his appointment, Trump framed the pick as part of a broader push alongside Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to crack down on harmful chemicals in food and pharmaceutical overuse among American youth, with the goal of addressing rising childhood chronic disease rates.
But Makary quickly found himself at odds with the administration on multiple key policy files. Most notably, he resisted a White House push to greenlight broad approval of flavored e-cigarette products, a category long linked to youth vaping outbreaks by public health advocates. The Wall Street Journal reported last month that Makary overruled internal agency scientists to block approval of fruit-flavored vapes from a major U.S. manufacturer, directly contradicting Trump’s repeated public pledges to move forward with approvals. In early May, the FDA ultimately authorized the first set of fruit-flavored e-cigarettes, including mango and blueberry varieties, made by Los Angeles-based manufacturer Glas.
Makary also drew fierce criticism from anti-abortion groups after the FDA approved a generic version of the abortion medication mifepristone, a decision that expanded access to the drug by lowering costs. Leading anti-abortion nonprofit Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America publicly called for Makary’s ouster over the approval. Beyond these flashpoints, he also earned the ire of the pharmaceutical industry over a higher-than-expected rate of new drug approval denials, particularly for rare disease treatments and cancer therapies.
Makary’s departure marks the latest high-level exit from HHS under Kennedy’s leadership. Earlier in 2026, HHS Deputy Secretary Jim O’Neill stepped down from his role, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Susan Monarez left the agency in 2025. His exit also joins a string of recent senior personnel changes across the Trump administration, which have also seen the departure of Navy Secretary John Phelan, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in recent months.
Prior to his appointment to lead the FDA, Makary was a prominent critic of federal public health policies implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic, most notably expressing skepticism about mass vaccine mandates. Born in Liverpool, England, Makary moved to the U.S. as a child and was raised in Baltimore, Maryland, the same city that would become home to his long-time academic career at Johns Hopkins. The BBC has reached out to HHS to request additional comment on Makary’s departure, and no additional details on the timeline for naming a permanent replacement have been released as of Tuesday.