By Ahmed Aboulenein
WASHINGTON, July 8 (Reuters) – Erica Schwartz, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, will appear before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions on July 15 for her confirmation hearing, the committee said on Wednesday.
In April, Trump nominated Schwartz, who had served as deputy surgeon general during the COVID-19 pandemic, to become director of the CDC following multiple leadership shakeups at the health agency.
The hearing is the first concrete step toward confirming a major health agency leader since the Senate confirmed CDC Director Susan Monarez last year. Monarez was fired less than a month later.
Top posts across U.S. health agencies remain unfilled deep into Trump’s second term, and the CDC has been in near-constant turmoil since Trump took office.
In March 2025, Trump withdrew his first CDC nominee for the role, former Florida Republican congressman Dave Weldon, a physician long critical of vaccines, hours before his scheduled confirmation hearing after it became clear he lacked the votes.
Monarez was fired less than a month into the job after clashing with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over vaccine policy, including what she said were his demands that she pre-approve changes to the childhood vaccine schedule and fire career scientists. Four top CDC officials resigned in protest.
Schwartz, a board-certified preventive medicine physician and former deputy surgeon general during Trump’s first term, has no public record of opposing vaccines, making her a more conventional nominee.
If confirmed, she has pledged to resign from UnitedHealth Group and other board roles, sell healthcare-related holdings and recuse herself from matters involving former employers.
COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN RECEPTIVE TO NOMINEE
U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican and physician who has been openly skeptical of Kennedy’s bid to overhaul U.S. vaccine policy, will lead the hearing as committee chairman.
Cassidy lost his Republican primary in May after Trump targeted him for retribution over his 2021 vote to convict him at his second impeachment trial, and has since grown more openly defiant.
He appeared receptive to Schwartz, however, calling her “very impressive” after what he described as a “good meeting” with her last month.
The committee will also hold a confirmation hearing the same day for Sean Kaufman, Trump’s nominee for assistant secretary for preparedness and response, charged with leading national medical and public health preparations for and responses to disasters and emergencies. This includes managing the Strategic National Stockpile of emergency medicines.
HEALTH AGENCY LEADERSHIP GAPS PERSIST
Beyond the CDC and ASPR, other major health posts remain vacant. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary resigned in May and Trump has not named a permanent successor.
Trump named radiologist Nicole Saphier as his third surgeon general nominee in April, after withdrawing Kennedy ally Casey Means, who lacked the votes to clear the health committee.
Trump also nominated Chris Klomp, who has served as HHS chief counselor and Medicare director, as deputy health secretary in late June. That post has been vacant since Jim O’Neill departed in February as part of a broader agency management shakeup.
At the National Institutes of Health, 13 of its 27 institutes are now led by acting directors. The acting head of the NIH’s second-largest institute, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, departed in May as the U.S. scrambled to respond to Ebola and hantavirus outbreaks.
(Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein; Editing by David Gregorio)
Comments