Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald told a local TV station that she abruptly resigned from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention due to intractable financial conflicts and not a scandal surrounding her purchase of tobacco stocks.
Politico first reported earlier this week Fitzgerald had invested in tobacco stocks after ascending to her post, going directly against the agency’s mission of fighting smoking.
Fitzgerald resigned on Wednesday and told a local CBS station that the stock purchase was inadvertently done by a financial investor.
“I don’t want to be invested in tobacco,” she said. “I have been a doctor for 30 years and I have been against tobacco use of any form.”
She added that as soon as she knew about the stock buy, she sold it.
However, the tobacco sales were not the only financial issue facing Fitzgerald. She said that she could not extract herself from investments in health technology companies, including a company called Greenway Health that provides electronic health records.
“It is taking too long and it is too much of a distraction from the CDC work and that is why I offered my resignation,” Fitzgerald said.
