Trump names new CDC director
US President Donald Trump has named Erica Schwartz to lead the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
A Coast Guard rear admiral, Schwartz served as Trump’s deputy surgeon general during his first administration.
The CDC had gone months without a Senate-confirmed director after the last leader, Susan Monarez, was ousted.
“It is my honour to nominate the incredibly talented Dr Erica Schwartz, MD, JD, MPH, as my Director of the CDC,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “She is a star!”
Leadership gap at the agency
Jay Bhattacharya, the director of the National Institutes of Health, has been overseeing the CDC on an interim basis since Monarez left.
Monarez was ousted in September after she clashed with Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr over his vaccine policies.
Monarez wrote in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that she was fired because she refused to rubber-stamp vaccine recommendations from a new advisory panel Kennedy had placed several vaccine sceptics on.
Schwartz’s background and experience
Schwartz worked for 24 years in the Commissioned Corps of the US Public Health Service, and has a medical degree from Brown University and a law degree from the University of Maryland.
She left her government work after Trump’s first term, when the Biden administration did not select her as acting US surgeon general.
Previous nomination attempts
Before nominating Monarez, Trump’s first choice to lead the CDC was Dave Weldon, a former Florida congressman who has criticised vaccines. But that nomination was withdrawn after it became clear Weldon did not have the votes to be confirmed.
Monarez ended up serving as the CDC leader for just shy of a month.
Ongoing changes and controversy
Under Kennedy’s leadership, the CDC has seen sweeping changes, including mass firings and restructuring that he has claimed helped reduce “bureaucratic sprawl”.
Kennedy has also made a series of controversial changes to US vaccine policy that have alarmed scientists, including former CDC staff, some of whom resigned in protest over Monarez’s ousting.
In March, a judge blocked many of Kennedy’s vaccine changes from going into effect.
Source: BBC
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