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The Senate confirmed the next director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as viral outbreaks wreak havoc across the country, and as lawmakers worry whether they’ve found someone to stand up to President Donald Trump’s top health official.
The upper chamber confirmed Dr. Erica Schwartz to be the next CDC director on Wednesday along party lines. Her confirmation comes as a Cyclospora outbreak, commonly known as the diarrhea parasite, carves its way across the U.S. from contaminated lettuce.
Schwartz is the latest person to lead the agency during Trump’s second term in a position that has seen nearly a half dozen different names and faces helming the nation’s disease-fighting outfit.
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She almost didn’t make the cut for a full confirmation vote.
Lawmakers on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee grilled Schwartz on whether she would actually stand up to the Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his position on vaccines.
Notably, HELP Committee Chair Bill Cassidy, R-La., who proved the decisive vote to confirm Kennedy last year, didn’t buy whether she would just take orders or make scientific and medically-based decisions.
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When pressed during her initial committee hearing whether she would buck orders that were politically motivated, Schwartz told Cassidy, “The Secretary will absolutely allow me to be CDC director.”
“I feel like I’m having to go after this question a little bit more firmly than I feel like I should,” Cassidy said. “You can be CDC director and just take orders. We need a CDC director that will actually stand up to crazy, stupid things being said that undermine faith in immunization.”
That changed, though, and Schwartz cleared her committee test. Cassidy, who has used his newfound freedom to test the waters against the administration after being ousted by a Trump-backed opponent in his primary, said that the agency “needs someone who understands that the way to prevent vaccine-preventable diseases is to reassure the public that vaccines are safe and effective.”
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“I’m confident that she knows what she is doing and will stand against those who do not,” he said.
Schwartz, who served as deputy surgeon general during Trump’s first term, is not the first CDC director to be confirmed during this Congress.
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The first was Susan Monarez, who lasted only a month in the role.
Monarez received glowing praise from Trump during her confirmation process, but was swiftly booted from the position over what appeared to be a disagreement with Kennedy over vaccines.
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