Dr. Erica Schwartz, President Trump’s latest nominee to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said in a Senate confirmation hearing that she believes mRNA technology is “safe and effective.”

“I do believe that mRNA technology is safe and effective,” Schwartz said.

“She’s being nominated to LEAD the agency responsible for our public health, disease prevention, vaccine recommendations, safety monitoring, outbreak response, and health policy guidance for the U.S.,” the Vaccine Safety Research Foundation stated.

“This includes significant influence over immunization schedules, technology oversight (like for mRNA and related programs),” it added.

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Dr. Erica Schwartz told the Senate health committee she “will never betray the science” and pledged to use “radical transparency” in a bid to rebuild public trust in the agency. But several senators questioned how she might handle pressure from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has repeatedly moved to alter U.S. vaccine and CDC policies. Schwartz repeatedly declined to dissent from some of those actions.

Schwartz, 54, is up for director of the Atlanta-based CDC, which is charged with protecting Americans from preventable health threats.

Her career has largely been spent in military uniform, including in a leadership position at the U.S. Coast Guard where she oversaw the organization’s system of 41 clinics and 150 sick bays — as well as policies promoting vaccinations of service members. She later served as deputy surgeon general, where she helped lead uniformed medical and health professionals posted at the CDC and government health agencies that serve the general public.

The CDC long enjoyed a sterling international reputation but has been in turmoil since Trump returned to office last year. Largely due to layoffs and resignations, the agency has lost more than 3,000 employees, or more than a quarter of its workforce. Morale has plummeted as a succession of mostly temporary leaders have come and gone — the front office filled with political appointees, many of them with little or no training in medicine or public health.

Attorney Aaron Siri said Schwartz would “likely be a disaster.”

“Schwartz led nationwide Covid-19 vaccine deployment and her long track record of directly issuing rights-crushing civilian and military vaccine mandates, including mandating injection of smallpox, anthrax, and flu vaccines into U.S. Forces, and discipling those that refused, reflects she lacks the basic ethics and morals to lead the CDC. This agency does not need another cheerleader for industry; it needs a regulator over industry,” Siri said.

“Her prior promotion, let alone mandates, of nearly a dozen different vaccines leave little hope she will objectively oversee CDC’s vaccine program which has, between 1986 and the 2026, gone from 3 injections to 29 injections, including in utero, by an infant’s first birthday, while chronic childhood disease has gone from under 10% to over 40% of children, most related to immune system dysregulation,” he continued.

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Several committee members, particularly Democrats, used the hearing to lambast Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has worked to reduce access to vaccines. During Kennedy’s leadership, senators noted, the United States has experienced its largest measles outbreak in 35 years and is currently in the midst of a nationwide outbreak of explosive diarrhea caused by Cyclospora infections that has sickened nearly 7,000 people.

“Let us be clear: The major reason we are here today is because Secretary Kennedy fired Dr. Susan Monarez, the first Senate-confirmed CDC director, after less than one month on the job,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent and ranking minority committee member.

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Monarez “refused to act as a rubber stamp for Secretary Kennedy’s very dangerous agenda to limit the use of safe and effective vaccines,” Sanders said. “Dr. Monarez, to her credit, stood up for science, public health, and for the scientific method. Frankly, she stood up for protecting the well-being of the American people, and that was the reason that she was fired.

On a number of occasions, senators pressed Schwartz to provide a yes or no answer, but didn’t get one.

Sen. Maggie Hassan, a New Hampshire Democrat, noted that Kennedy canceled a CDC campaign to promote flu vaccines in 2025 during an influenza season in which nearly 300 children died. She asked Schwartz multiple times how she would respond to such a move. If Kennedy “ordered you to stop promoting the flu vaccine during a deadly flu season for children, would you carry out that order?”

“I don’t speak in hypotheticals,” Schwartz said.

“So, yes or no?” Hassan asked. “ Are you going to protect our kids, or are you going to follow an uninformed order from the secretary?”

Schwartz answered, “Senator, I will always, always protect our children.”

Hassan asked again, “You would refuse that order, yes or no?”

Schwartz responded, “Senator, my understanding of what happened back then was that the secretary has, he has various priorities, and as he’s as he’s looking at his priorities in terms of what…”

Hassan cut in, “I’m sorry, that’s not acceptable.”

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