New CDC director is confirmed, with Senate backing Dr. Erica Schwartz

Key Points:

• The Senate confirmed Dr. Erica Schwartz as the permanent director of the CDC with a 51-44 vote, marking the first permanent leadership in nearly a year; the vote was mostly along party lines, with Republicans in favor and most Democrats opposed.
• Schwartz, who served as deputy surgeon general under President Trump and has a background as a Navy and Coast Guard physician, will take over amid a measles outbreak and a cyclosporiasis parasitic infection linked to shredded iceberg lettuce, as well as rising vaccine hesitancy.
• Some public health experts criticized Schwartz for not clearly distancing herself from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s controversial vaccine policies during her Senate hearing, though Sen. Bill Cassidy ultimately supported her nomination after further discussions.
• Schwartz pledged to provide evidence-based public health guidance and stated she would not betray science, while Kennedy has previously altered vaccine schedules and replaced CDC advisory panel members with skeptics of Covid vaccines.
• Advocacy groups like the National Public Health Coalition expressed concerns about Schwartz’s ability to protect CDC guidance from political pressure, but HHS defended her record and dismissed claims of evasiveness as political theater.