Senate confirms Erica Schwartz to lead the CDC after year-long vacancy
WASHINGTON — The Senate voted on Wednesday to confirm Dr. Erica Schwartz as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, giving the agency
WASHINGTON — The Senate voted on Wednesday to confirm Dr. Erica Schwartz as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, giving the agency a permanent leader after nearly a year without one. The vote was 51-44.
The confirmation ends a long stretch of instability at the CDC. Schwartz takes over as the agency faces layoffs, resignations and leadership shakeups, while also responding to surges in measles cases, cyclosporiasis outbreaks and an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda.
A party-line vote
The Senate vote fell almost entirely along party lines. Only one Democrat, Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, backed Schwartz.
Schwartz, who spent 24 years in the US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, also served as deputy surgeon general in the first Trump administration. Her confirmation followed a rocky hearing before the Senate health committee, where several senators were said to have been unsettled by some of her answers.
Vacuum at the top of the agency
The CDC has gone nearly a year without a confirmed director. Susan Monarez was ousted on Aug. 27, 2025, after she refused to fire CDC experts and pre-approve vaccine policy changes recommended by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Since then, leadership has shifted again and again. Jay Bhattacharya, the National Institutes of Health director, had been serving as acting CDC director since February. Before him, Jim O’Neill held the role.
That turnover matters. The CDC sits at the center of US disease response, and the agency’s next moves will be watched closely as outbreaks continue and staff morale remains under strain.
Pressure from inside the agency
Former CDC officials and public health experts have warned for months that the leadership gap was deepening the agency’s problems. Schwartz now inherits an office that needs to steady itself fast.
"I really wish her luck in her new role," said Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, a former top CDC official who resigned last year.
Her confirmation gives the White House a permanent appointee at an agency that has been under unusual political and operational pressure for most of the past year. The next test comes quickly: whether Schwartz can restore confidence inside the CDC while the outbreaks keep moving.
