Marty Makary, US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner, is leaving his post, US president Donald Trump said yesterday Tuesday 12 May 2026.
Mr Trump confirmed Dr Marty Makary’s departure, telling reporters at the White House: ‘Marty is a terrific guy, but he’s going to go on and he’s going to lead a good life. He was having some difficulty.’
He added that the deputy commissioner for food Kyle Diamantas would replace Dr Makary as temporarily commissioner. Mr Diamantas is a lawyer with personal ties to Donald Trump Jr.
Dr Makary’s resignation comes after weeks of intensifying pressure from powerful Trump allies, supporters of Health Secretary Robert F.Kennedy Jr’s Make America Healthy Again movement, conservative media, pharmaceutical companies, and anti-abortion groups.
He was criticised for his handling of reintroducing flavoured vapes into the US market, a stalled abortion-pill review and public disagreements with drugmakers over reviews for vaccines, gene therapies and other rare-disease drugs. Makary had blocked FDA approval of vape fruit flavours made by a US company, even after scientists at his agency had greenlit the products, the Wall Street Journal reported last month.
He had also drawn the ire of pharmaceutical companies after a wave of drug rejections, particularly for rare disease treatments and cancer therapies.
Dr Makary, a surgical oncologist who was a vocal critic of vaccine mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic, was confirmed as FDA commissioner in March 2025.
He led a drastically smaller agency after cuts by the Trump administration and its Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) forced out thousands of employees.
Most of the FDA’s senior officials resigned, retired or were forced out in the first year of Mr Trump’s second term in office, leading to a steady stream of leaks and negative stories in the media reporting low morale, dysfunction and frustration among agency staff.
The FDA had five different vaccine chiefs in the span of a year, including one who was fired, hired back a month later, before leaving again less than a year after that.
The White House has become more involved in the health agency in recent months and has sought more conventional candidates for top health jobs.
The FDA commissioner is often required to juggle competing priorities that straddle science and politics, with Dr Makary having to balance calls by Mr Trump and other Republicans to cut red tape at the FDA, while also tending to Mr Kennedy’s interest in scrutinising the safety of vaccines, drugs and food additives.
Makary gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic for his scepticism of the federal government’s policies, including the use of vaccines.
He was born in Liverpool, England, before moving with his family as a child to the US, where he was raised in Baltimore, Maryland.
