President Donald Trump on Thursday selected Erica Schwartz, former deputy surgeon general and medical doctor, to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, he announced on Truth Social. Schwartz, who will require Senate confirmation, was deputy surgeon general during Trump’s first term and is a retired rear admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, a uniformed service focused on health issues. CDC has been without a permanent leader for eight months. National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya has been serving as interim director since February. “She is a STAR!” Trump said of Schwartz on Truth Social. Schwartz has a traditional medical background, receiving a Doctor of Medicine degree from Brown University School of Medicine in 1998. She spent 24 years in uniformed service, including time in the U.S. Coast Guard and the Navy, where she ran immunization clinics. After leaving her deputy surgeon general post, she joined the board of directors for Butterfly Network, a digital health company. The decision comes after a turbulent year for the CDC over its decisions on vaccine policy and high-level personnel shakeups. Susan Monarez, the last CDC director, was fired in August after disagreements with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Monarez said she was removed from her role for not signing off on his vaccine advisers’ recommendations ahead of time and for refusing to fire career officials who disagreed with Kennedy. Trump’s original choice for CDC director, former Florida congressman Dave Weldon, withdrew before his confirmation hearing after support wavered because of his past statements about vaccines. In addition to turmoil within the agency, Kennedy last year fired all the members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which issues recommendations for vaccine use in the U.S. A federal judge in Massachusetts last month blocked those changes in a case filed by the American Academy of Pediatrics. The agency has not appealed the ruling, but Kennedy issued a new ACIP charter seen as trying to sidestep the court order. Trump is faced with the task of choosing a CDC director who could promote the “Make America Healthy Again Agenda” without being too ideological. Trump also announced a slate of other top-level CDC nominations: Sean Slovenski, president and CEO of the digital health company PatientPoint, will serve as deputy director and chief operation officer. Jennifer Shuford, the commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services, was selected to serve as deputy director and chief medical officer. Sara Brenner, the Food and Drug Administration principal deputy commissioner, was selected to serve as senior counselor for public health to Kennedy. “These Highly Respected Doctors of Medicine have the knowledge, experience, and TOP degrees to restore the GOLD STANDARD OF SCIENCE at the CDC, which was an absolute disaster focused on ‘mandates’ under Sleepy Joe,” Trump said.
