The Senate confirmed Dr. Erica Schwartz, President Donald Trump’s nominee for Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director, along nearly partisan lines on Wednesday.
Schwartz, who was confirmed 51-43 after a turbulent confirmation hearing in the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions last month, is slated to take office after the agency has been without a permanent leader for nearly a year.
Recommended Stories
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) was the only Democrat to support Schwartz’s nomination. Sens. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), Maize Hirono (D-HI), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Ron Johnson (R-WI), Thom Tillis (R-NC), and Mitch McConnell (R-KY) did not vote.
Schwartz was deputy surgeon general during the first Trump administration, overseeing the COVID-19 testing program during the height of the pandemic. Prior to that, she had a distinguished career in the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps.
Schwartz had a difficult time during her confirmation hearing answering questions from Democrats regarding whether she would stand up to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. regarding vaccine policy.
Kennedy fired her Senate-confirmed predecessor, Susan Monarez, roughly a month after taking office.
Monarez told the Senate health committee, following her termination, that she refused to follow Kennedy’s directive to preapprove changes to the childhood vaccine schedule before the meeting of the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
HOW DID FAUCI’S DIARIES MAKE IT PUBLIC? NO ONE WILL SAY
Schwartz, who has a traditional public health background compared to other Trump administration officials chosen from within the Make America Healthy Again movement, told the Senate during her confirmation hearing that she did not believe that Kennedy would ask her to do something along similar lines.
Schwartz is the second CDC director to ever go through the Senate confirmation process. It was not a position that required Senate approval before the COVID-19 pandemic.
