Schwartz, Kaufman face Senate vaccine questions: Key takeaways

The fates of two top health officials — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Susan Monarez — loomed over a Wednesday Senate hearing, though neither of them was in the room.

Almost a year after Kennedy ousted Monarez as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention over vaccine policy, senators pressed the administration’s new pick to run the CDC on whether she’d face a similar fate, and how she’d deal with what many of them characterized as Kennedy’s political interference in the agency. 

The nominee, Erica Schwartz, repeatedly demurred on the question, never quite saying whether she would stand up to the health secretary.