For the first time in nearly a year, a Senate-confirmed candidate is set to assume the role of full-time Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For the first time ever, the CDC will be led by a Black woman. And while the incoming director’s credentials have been recognized by both sides of the political aisle, questions remain whether or not she will simply follow the orders of President Trump and Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. or push back against political pressure and anti-scientific agendas.
Schwartz confirmed despite questions over her independence
On Wednesday, the Senate voted 51-44 to confirm the nomination of Dr. Erica Schwartz to become permanent Director of the CDC, a position that has been filled by temporary leaders for nearly a year. Dr. Schwartz has previously served as a Navy physician and as the Coast Guard’s chief medical officer, and she was deputy surgeon general during President Trump’s first term. The vote to confirm Schwartz was mostly along party lines; Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia was the only Democrat to vote in favor of her confirmation. She will become the first Black woman to occupy the head CDC role. While her qualifications have been widely acknowledged, legislators, experts and activists from both sides of the political aisle have questioned her ability to stand up to political agendas. Some of that criticism has come from the political Right. For example, attorney Aaron Siri, who has often supported Kennedy’s anti-vaccine agenda, criticized Schwartz for enforcing vaccination mandates in the military.
Most of the skepticism for Schwartz, however, focused on whether she would be too willing to follow Kennedy’s lead on vaccines and other public health questions. Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who has broken with Trump and Kennedy over vaccine policies, said during Schwartz’s confirmation hearing, “We need a CDC director that will actually stand up to crazy, stupid things being said that undermine faith in immunization.” Although Cassidy was ultimately persuaded that Schwartz would be an independent and pro-science director, most Democrats and some public health experts remained unconvinced. Schwartz claimed during her confirmation hearing to be unaware of some of Kennedy’s past interference with the CDC, and she stated her belief that Kennedy would never ask her to defy science in setting policy. Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease expert at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, said that answer “seemed to me like an evasion” of the question of whether Schwartz was willing to stand up to Sec. Kennedy.
Trump, RFK, Jr. have weakened CDC and possibly exacerbated public health crises
The concerns about Schwartz and her independence come as the CDC has been heavily politicized under the Trump administration as Kennedy pushes an agenda that flies in the face of accepted science. Since Trump returned to the White House in 2025, the administration has interfered with the CDC, NIH and other public health agencies in ways that have hampered their abilities to effectively communicate and address public health concerns. Anti-vaccine rhetoric from Kennedy and others was suspected of motivating a gunman who opened fire on the CDC’s Atlanta headquarters last August. Meanwhile, the last Senate-confirmed head of the CDC, Susan Monarez, was fired by Trump just one month into the job after she pushed back against orders from Kennedy to fire several CDC scientists and to enact vaccine restrictions; Trump said that Monarez was not “aligned with the president’s mission to make America healthy again.” The perceived interference and hostility toward the CDC has prompted staff resignations and walkouts. Since Monarez was fired, the CDC has been led by a series of interim directors, most recently Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a Trump appointee who also heads the National Institutes of Health and who gained a controversial reputation for downplaying COVID and expressing vaccine skepticism.
As incoming CDC Director, Dr. Schwartz will have to deal with these challenges within the organization at a time when the United States is currently facing cyclosporiasis outbreaks and the worst measles outbreak that the country has seen in decades. Critics have partially blamed Kennedy’s anti-vaccine rhetoric and the dismantling of public health infrastructure for allowing such public health crises to grow to the levels that have been reached. Schwartz’s comments at her confirmation hearing give mixed signals about how she will navigate her role during these challenging times. Schwartz pledged to practice “radical transparency and unwavering scientific integrity” as CDC director. She declared that “I will never betray the science” and rejected the idea pushed by Kennedy and others that vaccines cause autism. But she also expressed agreement with other aspects of Kennedy’s agenda, such as promoting diet and exercise to treat chronic illness and refocusing the CDC on infectious diseases over other health issues, and she declared at the hearing that “I am all in on the Make America Healthy Again agenda.”
These statements leave an open question concerning what type of leader Dr. Schwartz will be as CDC Director: an independent public servant willing to defy the administration to uphold science, or a loyal executor of the agenda that Trump and Kennedy have pursued. As the United States faces significant public health crises and a demoralized CDC, Schwartz will have the difficult task of balancing the recommendations and morale of scientists and experts and the political pressures coming from the Trump administration, all while working to keep the United States safe and healthy.