Trump nominates Erica Schwartz as CDC director

President Donald Trump on Thursday nominated Erica Schwartz to serve as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, concluding a monthslong effort to install a permanent leader at the embattled health agency. 

Schwartz will have to be confirmed by the Senate. 

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya had been acting director of the CDC – a title that expired last month under federal law. That law, called the Vacancies Act, limits the amount of time an acting officer can serve in place of a Senate-confirmed official to 210 days. 

Late last month, it marked 210 days since the most recent CDC director, Dr. Susan Monarez, was fired. 

She has so far been the only person to serve as a confirmed CDC director during Trump’s second term, holding the role for under a month last summer. In congressional testimony in September, Monarez said she was fired after refusing Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s demands to approve vaccine recommendations she believed lacked scientific support.

The nomination comes after a tumultuous several months for the agency, which is reeling from the leadership upheaval, plummeting morale, significant staff turnover and controversial changes to U.S. vaccine policy. Ahead of leadership departures last summer, staff was shaken by a gunman’s attack on the CDC’s Atlanta headquarters on Aug. 8. 

Last month, a judge blocked a critical vaccine panel’s efforts to overhaul U.S. immunization policy. That includes an effort to reduce the number of recommended childhood shots from 17 to 11.

Trust in federal health agencies has plummeted during Kennedy’s tenure as Health and Human Services secretary, according to a February poll from health policy research group KFF, with declines across the political spectrum.