Senate votes to confirm Dr. Erica Schwartz as CDC director
By Mary Kekatos
The Senate voted on Wednesday to confirm Dr. Erica Schwartz as the next director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Schwartz was confirmed in a 51-44 vote that generally fell along party lines.
She will replace Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), who took over as acting CDC director in February, and she will become the first permanent director in about a year.
President Donald Trump nominated Schwartz in April, describing her as "incredibly talented."
Schwartz earned a medical degree from Brown University and served in the U.S. Navy until 2005.
She served in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, as the Coast Guard Chief Medical Officer and as Deputy Surgeon General from 2019 to early 2021, during the first Trump administration.
During her confirmation hearing last month before the Senate HELP Committee, Schwartz faced questions from senators on vaccines and running agencies independently.
Ranking Member Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont., asked Schwartz if she would remove a webpage updated last November on the CDC's website for autism and vaccines. The webpage states that a link between the two has been ignored despite many studies finding no such link.
Schwartz said she accepted there is "overwhelming evidence" vaccines don't cause autism but did not commit to removing the webpage.
"Senator, I have been in situations where I have had to go to my superiors in the military to have conversations, very difficult conversations, about things that may have been concerning to the troops or to the military personnel, and I will do the same with [Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.]," she replied.
Chairman Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican who grew frustrated with Schwartz on certain topics during the hearing, said later in the month that he spoke with her again and reviewed the transcript of her hearing.
He said during a Senate HELP meeting that Schwartz "knows what she is doing and will stand against those who don't."
Cassidy added that the Department of Health and Human Services modified the CDC's autism and vaccines webpage as "a sign of good faith."
During the confirmation hearing, senators expressed concern about whether Schwartz will have the independence from Kennedy to make public health recommendations, referencing a previous CDC director: Susan Monarez.
Monarez was confirmed as CDC director in July 2025, but she held the post for less than a month. Monarez was fired by Kennedy for reportedly not rubber-stamping the health secretary's vaccine agenda or firing high-ranking CDC leaders whom he opposed.
The turmoil led to both Kennedy and Monarez appearing in front of Senate committees to address the ousting.
"'I'm concerned that [Schwartz won't] be allowed to do her job, and worry that she will experience the same fate as Dr. Monarez," Dr. Richard Besser, former acting director of the CDC during the Obama administration, told ABC News. "But I'm willing to be surprised. We definitely need an independent CDC director."
Besser said he hopes Schwartz is able to encourage Americans to get vaccinated against infectious diseases and is transparent about outbreaks, such the cyclosporiasis outbreak currently spreading in the U.S.
"I'll be looking to see whether she's able to use her voice to encourage people here to get the measles vaccine," Besser said. "Whether she's able to use her voice in terms of calling for international support to curtail the Ebola outbreak in in Africa, and how she works across the country to try and rein in the cyclospora outbreak. Those are the issues that are in the news right now that CDC can really contribute to addressing."
ABC News' Arthur Jones II and Georgia Davis contributed to this report.
