ATLANTA — President Donald Trump announced this week that he is nominating Erica Schwartz, a former deputy surgeon general, to be the next director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Schwartz will replace Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health, who took over as acting CDC director in February.
The agency has been in turmoil since Dr. Susan Monarez was ousted from her job in August.
Several key CDC scientific leaders resigned in protest, saying Monarez’s dismissal dashed their hopes that a CDC director would be able to guard against political meddling in the agency’s scientific research and health recommendations.
Since then, there’s been a revolving door in agency leadership, with the short-term role of acting director being passed from one Washington-based HHS official to another.
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But there seems to be some hope on the horizon. Many in the medical community applauded Schwartz’s nomination, saying she brings decades of medical experience that will serve the agency well.
“I don’t know Dr. Schwartz personally but, from what I’ve read, it sounds like she would be an excellent candidate to be CDC director,” Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center and an attending physician in the division of infectious diseases at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told ABC News.
“She has a history in public health and in supporting the public’s health, which is a welcome change from what we have now ... I think this is a welcome change in the right direction toward public health,” he added.
Schwartz holds multiple academic credentials, including both medical and law degrees. Her career has largely been spent in military uniform, including in a leadership position at the U.S. Coast Guard, where she oversaw the organization’s system of 41 clinics and 150 sick bays.
She later served as deputy surgeon general, where she helped lead uniformed medical and health professionals posted at the CDC and government health agencies that serve the general public.