By Ahmed Aboulenein
WASHINGTON, Aug 5 (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate on Wednesday confirmed Dr. Erica Schwartz as director of the U.S. CDC, handing the Trump administration a rare win after repeated failed attempts to fill top health posts.
Schwartz, President Donald Trump’s third pick to run the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was confirmed 51-44. She will be the first permanent CDC director since Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. last year fired Trump’s second pick, Susan Monarez, after less than a month over a clash on vaccine policy.
Schwartz’s confirmation follows months of leadership turmoil at the CDC, which has lacked a permanent leader for all but a month of Trump’s second term.
She inherits an agency confronting the worst U.S. measles resurgence in three decades, driven by falling childhood immunization rates, an international Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda, and the largest U.S. foodborne illness outbreak in recent years.
Trump withdrew his first CDC pick, Dave Weldon, and his first surgeon general nominee, Janette Nesheiwat, in 2025 before either reached a hearing. He withdrew a second surgeon general pick, Casey Means, in April when it became apparent she lacked enough votes.
The upheaval extends across the Department of Health and Human Services. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary resigned in May, with no replacement nominated. The deputy health secretary’s post has been vacant since Jim O’Neill left in February, and a dozen of the National Institutes of Health’s 27 institutes and centers lack permanent directors.
At her July 15 hearing, Schwartz said her first priority would be restoring trust “through radical transparency and unwavering scientific integrity.” She aligned herself with Kennedy’s broader agenda, telling Republican lawmakers she was “all in on the Make America Healthy Again agenda.”
Schwartz’s path cleared when Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, the health committee’s Republican chairman, signaled support, reversing course after earlier questioning whether she would stand up to Kennedy on vaccine policy.
Trump nominated Schwartz, his first-term deputy surgeon general, in April. The 54-year-old is a board-certified preventive medicine physician who served as the U.S. Coast Guard’s chief medical officer from 2015 to 2019. She holds a medical degree from Brown University and a law degree from the University of Maryland.
She has pledged to resign from UnitedHealth Group and other board roles, sell healthcare-related holdings and recuse herself from matters involving former employers.
(Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein; Editing by Nick Zieminski and Lisa Shumaker)
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