NEW YORK – The Senate voted Wednesday to confirm Dr. Erica Schwartz as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, handing her control of a major federal public health agency strained by political interference, staffing losses and sinking morale.
Schwartz, 54, was approved in a 51-44 vote, becoming the 22nd director of the Atlanta-based CDC and the agency’s first Senate-confirmed leader in nearly a year. She brings an unusual mix of credentials to the job, including medical and law degrees, previous service as deputy surgeon general and a senior leadership role with the U.S. Coast Guard.
Her path to confirmation was not assured. During a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing last month, Chairman Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., and other lawmakers pressed Schwartz on whether she would resist pressure from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. if asked to direct the CDC toward actions not grounded in science or sound public health practice.
Cassidy later said additional conversations changed his view. After speaking with Schwartz following the hearing, as well as with people familiar with her record, he said he had grown more confident in her ability to lead the agency.
The CDC has faced deep instability since Trump returned to office last year.
Layoffs and resignations have thinned the agency’s ranks by more than 3,000 employees, representing over a quarter of its workforce. Inside the CDC, morale has suffered as a rotating cast of mostly interim leaders moved through the top job, while the front office became populated by political appointees with limited or no medical or public health training.
When Schwartz’s nomination was announced in April, some public health specialists greeted the decision with cautious optimism, pointing to her professional background. They also noted that she was Trump’s pick rather than Kennedy’s, a significant distinction given Kennedy’s prominence in the anti-vaccine movement before he was selected to oversee the CDC and other federal health agencies.
Schwartz was the third person Trump nominated to lead the CDC over the past 18 months.
The first was a former Florida congressman, Dr. David Weldon. His Senate hearing in March 2025 was canceled an hour before it was to begin. Weldon said at the time that he had been told not enough senators were willing to vote for him.
The White House then moved on to Susan Monarez, who had been serving as the CDC’s acting director. Monarez was confirmed by the Senate, but ousted from the job in less than a month. Trump administration officials said she was not aligned with the president’s agenda, so they terminated her.
Since then, there have been a series of HHS officials as acting CDC director.
The CDC position was one of several leadership vacancies among federal health agencies, including the U.S. surgeon general and the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration.
