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Senate Confirms Erica Schwartz as CDC Director, Ending a Year Without One

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The Senate voted 51 to 44 on Wednesday, August 5 to confirm Dr. Erica Schwartz as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The vote was largely along party lines. Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia was the only Democrat to vote in favor.

Schwartz is the CDC’s first Senate-confirmed director in nearly a year and its 22nd leader. She replaces Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the director of the National Institutes of Health, who had been serving as acting CDC director since February. She is expected to be sworn in within days.

Schwartz holds medical, public health, and law degrees. She spent 24 years in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, served as a Navy physician, was chief medical officer of the Coast Guard, and served as deputy surgeon general from 2019 to early 2021 during the first Trump administration. Trump nominated her in April.

Background

The position has been unstable. The administration’s first nominee, former Rep. Dave Weldon, withdrew after being told there were not enough votes for confirmation, in part over his views on vaccination. Susan Monarez was then confirmed and fired on August 27, 2025, less than a month into the job. Monarez has said she was removed after refusing to fire CDC experts and to pre-approve vaccine policy changes sought by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Administration officials said she was not aligned with the president’s agenda.

A series of HHS officials served as acting director in the interim. The CDC directorship was one of several unfilled federal health leadership positions, alongside the surgeon general and the FDA commissioner.

The requirement that the CDC director be Senate-confirmed is recent. It was created by a law passed in the 2023 Consolidated Appropriations Act. Monarez was the first director confirmed under it; Schwartz is the second.

The agency Schwartz inherits has lost more than a quarter of its workforce through layoffs and resignations, with reporting describing sharply reduced morale. She takes over during a measles crisis and a growing cyclosporiasis outbreak.

What Different Sides Are Saying

Supporters describe her as a conventional, credentialed pick. Her record includes guiding vaccination programs and crisis responses across a long federal career, which several outlets contrasted with earlier contenders more closely aligned with the Make America Healthy Again movement. Trump described her as incredibly talented.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, the health committee chairman and a physician, was the pivotal Republican. He criticized Schwartz during her July 15 hearing for evading his questions about whether she would challenge Kennedy, saying her responses were not quite the direct answer he had hoped for. He voted to advance her after further conversation, a transcript review, and a modification to the CDC’s webpage on vaccines and autism that addressed his objection. He said he was confident she knows what she is doing.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, the committee’s ranking member, opposed her at both stages. He said he was impressed by her credentials and service but did not believe she was prepared to stand up to Kennedy’s statements on vaccines and other health topics.

Her hearing answers are the substance of the disagreement, and they should be stated precisely. Asked whether she would remove a CDC webpage stating that a link between vaccines and autism has been ignored despite studies finding no such link, Schwartz said she accepted there is overwhelming evidence that vaccines do not cause autism but did not commit to removing the page. She said vaccines are safe and effective. She also said she was unaware of several vaccine policy changes made over the past year and declined to say whether she supported them. She said she did not believe administration officials would ask her to make decisions harmful to Americans.

Whether that is caution or evasion is where observers divide, and both readings were offered by people with relevant expertise. Some public health experts said she did not do enough to distance herself from Kennedy’s positions. Dr. Georges Benjamin, chief executive of the American Public Health Association, said public health officials in such roles often manage through influence and that influence is not gained by publicly disagreeing with a superior before taking the job. Benjamin separately said the CDC’s influence has diminished substantially and that statements from the agency now require verification in a way they did not before.

Kaine’s vote has a stated explanation. He said last month that he regretted voting against Monarez and had apologized to her. That is a reason offered in advance rather than reconstructed afterward, though it does not establish what will happen to Schwartz.

The precedent underneath this vote is unresolved. Monarez was confirmed and then fired within a month after refusing directives. Senate confirmation did not protect her tenure. Whether that shapes how Schwartz operates is not knowable now, and neither side raised it directly during the debate.

Note on Scope

Schwartz had not been sworn in as of this writing.

Her age is reported as 54 by the Associated Press. Some outlets place the start of her acting predecessor’s tenure in February and others in the preceding months; we have used February, which appears in the majority of accounts.

The webpage modification that Cassidy cited is described in reporting as addressing his objection. We have not independently reviewed the current or prior versions of that page.

Discussion Questions

  1. Should the head of a public health agency require Senate confirmation?
  2. What does it mean that a confirmed director was fired within a month?
  3. Should a nominee say in advance whether they would defy their own boss?
  4. Is declining to answer a question at a hearing a form of answer?
  5. How would you judge whether an agency leader is independent?
  6. Does a long military and federal career prepare someone for a political job?
  7. Why might one senator change his vote based on a webpage?
  8. What should happen when scientific consensus and official policy disagree?
  9. Can an agency that has lost a quarter of its staff do the same work?
  10. Imagine you are a CDC scientist reading this news. What would you want to hear from her first?

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