WASHINGTON — A sec­ond Trump admin­is­tra­tion appointee has been oust­ed at the Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion in the wake of the agency’s botched announce­ment about an exper­i­men­tal ther­a­py for COVID-19, which med­ical experts said dam­aged the health regulator’s cred­i­bil­i­ty with the public.

An FDA spokesper­son con­firmed Wednes­day that John “Wolf” Wag­n­er, a polit­i­cal appointee installed by the White House ear­li­er this sum­mer, is no longer head­ing the agency’s office of exter­nal affairs. Instead, Hei­di Rebel­lo, a long­time FDA career offi­cial, has stepped into the posi­tion on an act­ing basis, over­see­ing all FDA pub­lic com­mu­ni­ca­tions. Politi­co first report­ed the news.

The shake­up comes just five days after con­ser­v­a­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tions spe­cial­ist Emi­ly Miller was removed from her post head­ing the agency’s press office. Miller served just 11 days on the job and helped coor­di­nate the agency’s announce­ment that it had grant­ed emer­gency autho­riza­tion to con­va­les­cent plas­ma for COVID-19 patients.

That announce­ment trig­gered a back­lash last week after FDA Com­mis­sion­er Stephen Hahn was forced to cor­rect mis­state­ments that inflat­ed the poten­tial ben­e­fits of the ther­a­py. The deci­sion to autho­rize the treat­ment also fol­lowed threats and com­plaints from Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump, rais­ing con­cerns that the FDA had buck­led to polit­i­cal pres­sure from the president.

Health experts and for­mer FDA offi­cials say Hahn tar­nished the agency’s rep­u­ta­tion at the moment it’s need­ed most: as agency sci­en­tists pre­pare to decide whether upcom­ing coro­n­avirus vac­cines are effec­tive and safe to be giv­en to mil­lions of Amer­i­cans. Pub­lic doubts about the safe­ty and effec­tive­ness of the vac­cines could derail U.S. plans for a mass vac­ci­na­tion effort.

Wag­n­er is a long­time gov­ern­ment and mil­i­tary spokesman with strong ties to the Repub­li­can Par­ty and Trump White House. He was appoint­ed to the FDA in June.

He pre­vi­ous­ly worked as a com­mu­ni­ca­tions con­sul­tant for the 2016 Repub­li­can Nation­al Con­ven­tion in Cleve­land, where he devel­oped talk­ing points and mes­sag­ing, lined up sur­ro­gates for Trump and over­saw media engagements.

He was appoint­ed in 2017 as deputy assis­tant sec­re­tary at the Depart­ment of Vet­er­ans Affairs, over­see­ing its pub­lic affairs oper­a­tions and advis­ing gov­ern­ment offi­cials on vet­er­ans issues. He helped devel­op the Choo­se­VA mar­ket­ing pro­gram launched in 2018 that pro­mot­ed the department’s ser­vices and ben­e­fits to vet­er­ans and aimed to attract and retain employees.

Wag­n­er was one of sev­er­al Trump loy­al­ists appoint­ed to the FDA over the summer.

Miller’s appoint­ment in mid-August drew scruti­ny because it brought an out­spo­ken pro-Trump media strate­gist with lit­tle back­ground in sci­ence into an influ­en­tial FDA role usu­al­ly reserved for a career professional.

Dur­ing her few days as chief spokes­woman, she defend­ed her cre­den­tials, sparred with some reporters on Twit­ter and pushed back against claims that the FDA’s con­va­les­cent plas­ma announce­ment was influ­enced by politics.

The FDA spokesper­son said Wednes­day that FDA com­mu­ni­ca­tions advis­er Michael Fel­ber­baum had stepped into the role pre­vi­ous­ly held by Miller on an act­ing basis.

AP writer Ryan Foley con­tributed to this sto­ry from Iowa City, Iowa.