United States: Democratic U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren requested Trump’s nominee to recusal himself from setting decisions concerning former clients and employers in a healthcare industry for no less than four years, as reported by Reuters.
Warren Calls for Stronger Ethics Pledge from Trump-Era Nominee
Up for Senate confirmation is Jim O’Neil, a heath policy adviser with ties to several healthcare companies who is running for the position of Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services.
In a Monday letter to O’Neil reviewed by Reuters, Warren asked him to promise that he would not receive compensation for four years after leaving office from any companies that he regulated while in office and to refrain from lobbying the health department and any of its agencies for that length of time.
O’Neil could not immediately be reached for comment.
Concerns Over Industry Ties and Objectivity
Your association with biomedical firms under the auspices of HHS will call into question your objectivity in this role” wrote Warren who is a senator on the Finance Committee which will vote on the nomination to proceed before the senate votes to confirm O’Neil, wrote Warren.
US senator calls for stronger ethics commitments from Trump deputy health secretary pick – Reuters https://t.co/DZzqbfmQqp
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O’Neil is an associate of tech guru and former Trump supporter Peter Thiel and between 2012 and 2019, he ran one of Thiel’s venture capital entities, Mithril Capital Management. At Mithril, he put money into biotechnology companies, which now pursue approvals from the Food and Drug Administration for some of their products.
He was also a chief executive of his Thiel Foundation that was philanthropic and also a managing partner at Thiel Capital.
Direct Ties to FDA-Regulated Companies
ADvantage Therapeutics which is developing an Alzheimer’s drug that will need FDA approval is also being advised and boarded into by O’Neil. He has agreed to recuse from the specific party matters of ADvantage for one or two years in case he receives a bonus from the company to abide by the law.
The former appointees have voluntarily made ethics commitments that are beyond the set requirements in law and government regulations and that’s what Warren wrote that he should also do, as reported by Reuters.
Should O’Neil be confirmed, he would report to Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who bashes industry lobbying of health agencies, noting the “revolving door” of officials who become employed by the entities they regulated. At the department, Kennedy promised “radical transparency”.