The Senate confirmed Dr. Erica Schwartz as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Wednesday, ending nearly a year of leadership turmoil at the federal public health agency as it confronts surging measles cases, cyclosporiasis outbreaks, and an Ebola outbreak abroad.
Schwartz was confirmed 51-44.
President Donald Trump nominated Schwartz in April. The 54-year-old becomes the CDC's 22nd director and will oversee the Atlanta-based agency as it responds to those outbreaks and others.
Schwartz has medical and law degrees, served as Deputy Surgeon General during Trump’s first term, and held a leadership position with the U.S. Coast Guard. She also spent more than two decades in the U.S. Public Health Service and previously served as UnitedHealthcare’s president of insurance solutions.
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She was Trump’s third nominee for the CDC position in the past 18 months. Dr. David Weldon's Senate hearing in March 2025 was canceled an hour before it was to begin; Weldon said he had been told not enough senators were willing to vote for him. Susan Monarez was later confirmed but removed less than a month after taking office following a dispute with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The CDC has been led by a succession of acting directors since Monarez’s departure. The agency has also lost more than 3,000 employees through layoffs and resignations since Trump returned to office, amounting to more than one-quarter of its workforce.
Schwartz faced difficult questions during her July confirmation hearing about whether she would resist political pressure and reject health policies that were not supported by scientific evidence. She told senators:
“I have always stood up for what is right and what is true, and I believe that I will continue to do that. You have my assurances that I will do that. I will never betray the science ever. I will go where the science leads us.”
Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Bill Cassidy (R-LA) initially expressed frustration with some of Schwartz’s answers, particularly when she declined to say how she would respond if Sec. Kennedy directed the CDC to take an action she believed was unsupported by science.
Cassidy had warned at the hearing:
“Turmoil at the top of the nation’s top public health agency is not good for the health of the American people. It also raises questions about how other public health and medical agencies, like ASPR, operate. We need leaders who are unbiased, who make decisions based on science, not politics or ideology, and who are committed to protecting children’s health.”
Cassidy later announced that he would support Schwartz after speaking with her again, reviewing the hearing transcript and consulting people who had worked with her. He said he was confident she understood the position and would “stand against those who do not.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), the committee’s ranking member, opposed the nomination. Sanders praised Schwartz’s credentials and public service but argued that she had not demonstrated that she would stand up to Kennedy on vaccines and other health policies.
Schwartz will also sever her financial ties to UnitedHealth before assuming the CDC position. Her ethics agreement calls for her to end her employment, divest holdings in Butterfly Network and Aveanna Healthcare Holdings, leave several outside positions and avoid UnitedHealth-related matters for two years unless she receives a written waiver.
She takes command of an agency that is losing employees, is managing multiple active public health emergencies, and faces a public trust deficit that predates the current administration, with no permanent Surgeon General and no confirmed Food and Drug Administration commissioner alongside her.
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