Marty Makary has resigned as the head of the Food and Drug Administration, ending what’s been an unusually tumultuous run steering the U.S.’s top health regulator.
President Trump confirmed Makary’s departure, which was first reported by Politico, at a meeting with reporters on Tuesday. Kyle Diamantas, previously the FDA’s deputy commissioner for food, will serve as the agency’s acting commissioner in Makary’s place.
“Marty's a great guy, he's a friend of mine [and] he's a wonderful man,” Trump said. “He was having some difficulty,” but “he's going to go on and he's going to do well. Everybody wants that job."
The Department of Health and Human Services didn't respond to a request for comment.
In Diamantas, Health and Human Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy is tapping a reliable ally who has helped push his “Make America Healthy Again” agenda. In February, Kennedy named Diamantas senior counselor “to help us move faster and go further as we work to Make America Healthy Again.”
Diamantas helped oversee changes to the U.S. Dietary Guidelines and has championed a push to define ultraprocessed foods and encourage the food industry to move away from artificial dyes. He has also looked to widen the FDA’s post-market oversight of food chemicals by addressing the Generally Recognized as Safe approval process, which has been heavily criticized by Kennedy.
In his new role as acting commissioner, Diamantas is significantly expanding his responsibilities. It could also position food as a bigger focus at the FDA, especially as the issue resonates among voters moreso than restrictions on vaccines or abortion medications. In the department’s most recent budget request, it asked for $57 million in additional funding for the foods program that would go toward MAHA initiatives, including efforts to remake the GRAS process, according to an analysis from Atkin.
Makary was seen as a traditional pick as the head of the FDA when Trump nominated him in November 2024. A prolific medical researcher and author, he wrote papers on topics from pancreatic surgery protocols to patient safety and healthcare costs.
He also penned several books — among them one called “Blind Spots” that challenged what Makary often described as scientific “groupthink” — and criticized the public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Makary sailed through a Congressional confirmation hearing in March 2025.
But under his leadership, multiple key officials have resigned amid mass layoffs. Some analysts detected an uptick in delayed drug reviews compared to years past. The agency has also come under fire for unpredictable shifts in guidance and regulatory rejections that frustrated some drugmakers and contrasted with Makary’s goals of flexibility.
“Really the broader takeaway here for us is that FDA — and our ability to predict the FDA — is about as uncertain as it’s been in the past decade or longer,” Paul Matteis, an analyst at the investment firm Stifel, wrote in a note to clients late last year.
Makary this year continued to draw criticism from multiple places. He reportedly angered anti-abortion groups for not moving quickly enough on a promised safety study of the pill mifepristone, as well as clearing a generic version of the drug. Trump then reportedly pressured Makary into approving flavored vaping products after he’d hesitated to do so.
