HHS places ARPA-H director Alicia Jackson on leave amid ethics questions

Official held Evernow stock as menopause therapy warnings lifted

The Department of Health and Human Services has placed Alicia Jackson, director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, on administrative leave, an agency spokesperson said in a statement to ProPublica last week. HHS said it would “assess the facts before determining any change in her status. HHS requires all officials to comply with federal ethics laws, regulations, and policies.” The agency declined to answer additional questions about the reasons for Jackson’s leave, the timing of the decision, or whether the inspector general is investigating.

Jackson, sworn in Oct. 20, 2025, as ARPA-H’s second director, is the founder and former chief executive of Evernow, a San Francisco-based company that connects women experiencing menopause symptoms with medical providers who prescribe treatments. The agency, created three years before Jackson’s appointment, has a $1.5 billion budget and has issued contracts and grants including $160 million for genetic medicines targeting rare diseases and $144 million to study existing treatments for age-related illnesses. Evernow’s website lists celebrity angel investors including Gwyneth Paltrow, Cameron Diaz, Demi Moore and Drew Barrymore.

The ethics questions center on an HHS decision announced last November to eliminate “black box” warnings on hormone replacement therapies — the most serious type of federal safety warning, reserved for drugs with severe side effects or life-threatening risks. Standing behind a lectern bearing the HHS logo at a press conference about the decision, Jackson praised the policy as a victory for women and science. “Today we have the opportunity to add up to a decade of healthy years to the life of every woman that you love,” she said. “The science is clear: Hormone therapy is safe and effective. And it is hugely beneficial to the vast majority of women.”

Disclosure records obtained by ProPublica show Jackson kept Evernow stock worth between $115,002 and $300,000, plus company stock options whose value she described as “not readily ascertainable.” In a statement late Wednesday, Evernow said Jackson does not currently hold a financial interest in the company; the firm did not immediately respond to follow-up questions. Ethics experts called Jackson’s official endorsement of the warning removal “alarming” and an “obvious conflict of interest,” noting that federal law prohibits government employees from participating “personally and substantially” in matters that could influence their personal finances — including making statements at a press conference or in a news release. “We should care because her company is apparently intending to profit off this change in policy that she endorsed as a government official while still retaining a financial interest in the company,” said Virginia Canter, a former ethics lawyer at the White House, Treasury Department and Securities and Exchange Commission. “I say it puts her within the zone of a potential violation.”

It is unclear what role, if any, Jackson played in dropping the warning. The Food and Drug Administration regulates drugs, and its panel of experts had recommended an end to the warning requirement months before Jackson arrived in government. Months after the announced end to the warning notices, Evernow launched a nationwide expansion. Jackson’s two financial disclosures — filed last October and this August — remain uncertified. Over two months, ProPublica sought comment from Jackson and submitted questions about her work, investments and ethics records; Jackson did not respond, and HHS never addressed the detailed questions.

Bloomberg Law reported this week that a draft memo by a senior HHS official would have granted Jackson a conflict waiver covering 30 investments held by her and her husband. The memo said Jackson’s financial ties required her to recuse herself from “a significant portion” of her duties, including discussions about funding awarded by her agency, and that she must still comply with the terms of an ethics agreement. Evernow is not listed in the waiver, which also does not specifically mention the funds managed by 137 Ventures. The Office of Government Ethics does not list Jackson among federal officials who have received waivers. Bloomberg reported that two firms with ties to Jackson sought ARPA-H funding, but it was unclear whether either received any.

Jackson’s disclosures also show more than 60 venture capital and private equity funds that she says do not disclose their holdings, including at least 13 managed by 137 Ventures, a firm co-founded by her husband, Alex Jacobson. Federal appointees must list their spouses’ employment, but Jackson never included her husband’s role at 137 Ventures on her public disclosures; Jacobson did not respond to requests for comment. The disclosures show Jacobson owns between $5 million and $25 million in Palantir Technologies stock. Palantir had a $19 million contract from ARPA-H when Jackson became director and is using its software and AI technology to build and improve the agency’s data infrastructure; in June, ARPA-H extended the contract by a year in a renewal worth up to $13.7 million.

Jackson’s disclosures also show a stake in Gameto Inc., a Texas-based biotechnology company working through a two-year, $10 million ARPA-H award to create ovarian treatments that prevent menopause-related diseases. The award predated Jackson’s arrival, but as her office oversaw Gameto’s project, her stock’s value increased: her Gameto stake was worth between $15,001 and $50,000 in her October 2025 disclosure and between $50,001 and $100,000 in her Aug. 13 filing. It is unclear what drove the increase. The draft waiver would have allowed Jackson to take part in decisions affecting Palantir, Gameto and more than two dozen other investments; it includes a note dated April 30 — six months after Jackson started the job — saying discussions about the ethics agreement were ongoing. HHS officials would not answer repeated questions about whether Jackson recused herself from Palantir’s contract, has an ethics agreement or has divested any assets, and the agency has not produced an ethics agreement in response to a July Freedom of Information Act request.

Kedric Payne, Campaign Legal Center’s vice president, general counsel and senior director for ethics, said Jackson’s lack of disclosure about her husband and the funds she owns “suggests that agency leaders may be hiding their conflicts of interest from the public, and there is no ethics enforcement to stop it.” The watchdog group’s analysis of federal survey records found the Trump administration had 274 fewer full-time ethics officials by the end of 2025, and that Trump appointees failed to file nearly 420 legally mandated public financial disclosure reports last year — almost a fourfold spike compared with the Biden administration’s last full year.

Jackson’s leave adds to a series of ethics questions at HHS. Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Jackson’s ultimate boss, has faced questions about whether he used his office to help his wife, actress Cheryl Hines, whose media company, Youngster Productions Inc., received $210,000 in consulting fees from MAHA Action, a nonprofit promoting Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again agenda. The news, first reported by The New York Times, prompted the Campaign Legal Center to ask the HHS inspector general to examine whether Kennedy made or influenced policies that benefited his wife. Kennedy’s latest disclosure also showed more than $270,000 in gifts from allies working to bolster MAHA. HHS denied wrongdoing, telling the Times that the secretary “complies with all applicable federal ethics laws, regulations and financial disclosure requirements.” The Campaign Legal Center’s analysis found Kennedy’s cuts eliminated nearly 30% of HHS’ full-time ethics workers.

The agency’s former top attorney, Mike Stuart, was reassigned after a Washington Sun investigation found he invested in a company doing business with the department and repurchased stock in other businesses that ethics officials had required him to sell. The Office of Government Ethics refused to certify Stuart’s annual disclosure report “due to continued non-compliance” with his ethics agreement. Stuart said he did not know of the company’s involvement with the department and sold the stock immediately when ethics officials raised questions. “My whole career, I’ve never had even a whiff of an ethical issue. I’m extra careful that I am completely in compliance,” he told the Sun.

Jackson’s records are among 2,400 disclosures added Thursday to ProPublica’s Trump Team Financials database, a searchable tool launched in March. The records detail the finances of more than 2,300 officials appointed by President Donald Trump; ProPublica said it has requested disclosure records from 127 federal agencies and the White House, and that disclosures from roughly 1,500 appointees remain unreleased.