WASHINGTON — Erica Schwartz was confirmed Wednesday as the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, making her the second permanent leader of the agency since the second Trump administration took office.
Her confirmation, approved by the Senate in a 51-44 vote, also ends a nearly year-long vacancy for the CDC’s top job after health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired Schwartz’s predecessor last year.
Schwartz will join the agency as it deals with a number of ongoing disease outbreaks, including measles and a foodborne parasite in the U.S. and Ebola in parts of Africa. Schwartz, a retired rear admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, was deputy surgeon general during the first Trump administration. During that time, she was responsible for standing up Covid-19 public testing drive-throughs and tents.
The public health world will also be watching to see how Schwartz handles Kennedy’s aggressive vaccine policy agenda.
Schwartz’s predecessor, Susan Monarez, was fired just a month into her job last August after she said Kennedy pressured her to preemptively sign-off on vaccine policy changes. In the absence of a CDC director, the Department of Health and Human Services has moved to unilaterally reduce the number of recommended pediatric vaccines, including delaying the hepatitis B birth dose. Kennedy has also modified a CDC webpage that reversed the agency’s stance that vaccines do not cause autism, though Senate health committee leader Bill Cassidy (R-La.) has said that HHS has agreed to modify the page again.
At a Senate health committee confirmation hearing, Cassidy repeatedly pressed Schwartz on how she might stand up to political pressure from Kennedy or Trump, and seemed dissatisfied with her lack of a response.
Later, Cassidy voted to confirm Schwartz out of committee, saying during the vote he had spoken to her and was “confident that she knows what she is doing.” He did warn, however, that any further reversal on agreements he had received from HHS to reign in vaccine policy changes could hamper future health nominees.
Kennedy has blown through promises he’s made to Cassidy before, though, and the senator is departing Capitol Hill next January. He lost his reelection bid following public criticism from Trump and Kennedy.