The Senate on Wednesday confirmed Dr. Erica Schwartz to become the next director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Schwartz will be the agency’s first full-time leader in nearly a year.

The Senate voted 51-44, mostly along party lines, to confirm Schwartz.

“Congratulations to Dr. Erica Schwartz on your Senate confirmation as the next Director of @CDCgov. Dr. Schwartz is the most qualified leader ever nominated for this role. She brings decades of experience as a physician, public health leader, and public servant committed to protecting the health of the American people,” Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said.

“I look forward to working with Dr. Schwartz to restore public trust, strengthen the CDC’s core mission, and Make America Healthy Again,” he added.

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The confirmation of Dr. Schwartz, who was a deputy surgeon general in the first Trump administration, was all but guaranteed after the Senate health ​committee voted on Thursday to advance her nomination for a vote by the full Senate.

Dr. Schwartz was the Trump administration’s third nominee for C.D.C. director in two years. She holds degrees in law and medicine and is a retired rear admiral in the Commissioned Corps of the U.S. Public Health Service. She will need to manage an agency that has been without a confirmed director for all but one month since President Trump returned to the White House.

Since Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took office last year, the C.D.C. has lost about a third of its staff to layoffs and resignations, endured a shooting at its headquarters in Atlanta, and is grappling with a string of high-profile outbreaks including of cyclosporiasis in the United States and Ebola in Africa.

Outbreaks are inevitable, but the weakened C.D.C. seems much less able to contain them than it used to be, said Gigi Gronvall, a biosecurity expert at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

“It’s becoming very obvious what happens when the invisible workings of public health are not functioning the way we need them to,” she said. “But how much good can she do?” she added, referring to Dr. Schwartz. “The main problem is R.F.K. Jr.”

Yolanda Jacobs, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 2883, a union that represents C.D.C. staff, called on Dr. Schwartz to repair the fractured agency and restore its work force.

Schwartz made headlines last month during her confirmation hearing by saying she believes mRNA technology is “safe and effective.”

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

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“I Do Believe That mRNA Technology Is Safe And Effective” – CDC Director Nominee Says

NBC News shared further:

Though Schwartz was widely seen as a conventional pick for CDC director, some public health experts said she didn’t do enough at a Senate hearing last month to distance herself from some of Kennedy’s more controversial stances. Schwartz said at the hearing, for example, that vaccines are safe and effective, but she said she was unaware of some of Kennedy’s vaccine policy changes and dodged questions about whether she supported them.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., who chairs the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and is a doctor, accused Schwartz during her appearance of evading answers to his questions about whether she would challenge Kennedy if he tried to undermine science.

“We need a CDC director that will actually stand up to crazy, stupid things being said that undermine faith in immunization,” Cassidy said.

Cassidy agreed to support Schwartz’s nomination last month, he said, after speaking with her again and talking to those “who served with her and know her well.”

“I am confident that she knows what she is doing and will stand against those who do not,” he said at a HELP committee meeting July 23.

 

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