Meet Jim ONeill, the new acting CDC director. A man who previously advocated for "healthy spare kidneys walking around, unused" to be treated as commodities for purchase.
— Miranda 🖤🤍💜 (@DoomScroling) September 4, 2025
The reason the sale of human organs is illegal is because it opens the door for human exploitation & abuse. pic.twitter.com/9OMi66rpgH
President Donald Trump has chosen Deputy Health Secretary Jim O’Neill — a Silicon Valley investor and long-time associate of billionaire Peter Thiel — as acting director of the Centers for Disease Control replacing the highly-respected Dr. Susan Monarez who was fired by Trump for following science and refusing to commit illegal acts.
In a 2009 speech, O’Neill advocated people selling their organs, which is illegal in the U.S., notes The New Republic:
He’s also a proponent of legalizing the organ trade. “There are plenty of healthy spare kidneys walking around, unused,” as he put it during a 2009 talk—where he also argued in favor of generally leaving health care to the whims of the market. “Because there’s not a free market in health care, people are suffering very significant health consequences that in a free market they would not suffer,” he claimed.
O’Neill also called for people to use untested and unregulated new medications at their own risk in 2014, reports The New Republic:
In a 2014 speech, for instance, O’Neill—then managing director of Thiel’s Mithril Capital—proposed allowing drugs onto the market without first determining whether they even work. “Let people start using them, at their own risk,” he said. “Let’s prove efficacy after they’ve been legalized.”
(Sources: The New Republic, Twitter/X)