FDA / CMS / NIH / CDC Watch

The Agency Watch hub tracks operational and personnel news at the four HHS sub-agencies that the public encounters most directly: FDA, CMS, NIH, and CDC. The first year of the new HHS leadership has produced an unusual pace of leadership change, including dual-hatted acting roles, mid-tenure resignations and reinstatements, and budget reorganizations that intersect with statutory authority. We track the formal record — confirmation hearings, sworn-in dates, agency announcements, and committee oversight — rather than the day-to-day commentary.

The current snapshot, as of May 2026, has Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the 26th HHS Secretary, Mehmet Oz as the 17th CMS Administrator, Marty Makary as the 27th FDA Commissioner, and Jay Bhattacharya as the 18th NIH Director. Bhattacharya served as acting CDC Director from February to March 2026 before handing the role off. The Surgeon General nomination has cycled through three candidates, with Nicole Saphier announced on April 30, 2026 after Casey Means’s nomination was withdrawn. Inside the FDA, Vinay Prasad ran the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research from May 2025 until his departure at the end of April 2026, with Katherine Szarama now acting director.

From the roster, all four currently confirmed agency heads — Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Mehmet Oz, Marty Makary, and Jay Bhattacharya — anchor this hub. Their confirmation hearings, embedded above, remain the cleanest single record of what each official said under oath about the agency they now run.