Senate Confirms Erica Schwartz as CDC Director in 51-44 Vote

The Senate on Wednesday confirmed Dr. Erica Schwartz to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, giving the agency its first permanent director in roughly a year.

The 51-44 vote fell largely along party lines, with Republicans in favor and Democrats opposed. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., broke ranks to vote with Republicans. Kaine said last month that he regretted voting against the previous CDC director, Susan Monarez, and had apologized to her.

Schwartz served as deputy surgeon general during President Donald Trump's first term. Before that, she was a Navy physician and the chief medical officer of the Coast Guard.

A series of acting directors have run the CDC since August 2025, when Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired Monarez after 29 days on the job. Schwartz takes over from Jay Bhattacharya, who had led the agency since February while also directing the National Institutes of Health. Federal law required the administration to nominate a permanent director in March; Schwartz's nomination came a month after that deadline.

She inherits a measles crisis — the United States has recorded its highest case count in 35 years — and a growing outbreak of cyclosporiasis, a parasitic infection linked to shredded iceberg lettuce. She will also confront rising vaccine hesitancy, which some experts say Kennedy's rhetoric and policies have worsened.

Schwartz was widely seen as a conventional pick, but some public health experts said she did not do enough at a Senate hearing last month to distance herself from Kennedy's more contested positions. She testified that vaccines are safe and effective, but said she was unaware of some of Kennedy's vaccine policy changes and declined to say whether she supported them.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., a physician who chairs the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, accused her of evading his questions about whether she would challenge Kennedy. "We need a CDC director that will actually stand up to crazy, stupid things being said that undermine faith in immunization," Cassidy said. He later backed her, telling a July 23 committee meeting: "I am confident that she knows what she is doing and will stand against those who do not."

Cassidy said that "as a sign of good faith," the Department of Health and Human Services recently modified a CDC webpage about vaccines and autism. Since November, the page has said studies have not ruled out a link between childhood vaccines and autism, a claim at odds with decades of research showing no association. The claim remains, but the page now also states that scientists have not identified the root causes of autism.

The National Public Health Coalition, an advocacy group of former CDC employees, said last month it would not support the nomination. "Too often, her stated commitments were incomplete, vague, or missing," the group said.

HHS spokesperson Emily Hilliard told NBC News that Schwartz's "record speaks for itself," calling criticism of her hearing performance "simply political theater."

Kennedy, who has a history of anti-vaccine activism, altered the childhood immunization schedule in January to recommend fewer universal shots; a federal judge blocked the change in March. Last year he fired the members of the CDC's vaccine advisory panel and replaced them with his own picks, many skeptical of Covid shots. Monarez testified that Kennedy ousted her for refusing to blindly approve guidance from that panel.

Schwartz told senators that Kennedy would never ask her to commit in advance to approving particular vaccine recommendations. "As CDC director, my sacred responsibility is to provide the American people with public health guidance that is clear, honest and evidence-based," she said. "I will never betray the science."