{"id":29176,"date":"2026-08-06T00:50:07","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T19:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=29176"},"modified":"2026-08-06T00:50:07","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T19:50:07","slug":"senate-confirms-erica-schwartz-as-cdc-director","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=29176","title":{"rendered":"Senate confirms Erica Schwartz as CDC director"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"article-0\">\n  <!-- lil observer --><\/p>\n<section class=\"content__body\">\n<p>The Senate on Wednesday confirmed Dr. Erica Schwartz as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, giving the CDC its first official director in nearly a year.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Schwartz was confirmed Wednesday by a vote of 51 to 44. The CDC has been without a Senate-confirmed director since late August 2025, when former director Susan Monarez was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/cdc-director-susan-monarez-ousted\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\">ousted<\/a> just 29 days into the job. National Institutes of Health Director\u00a0Jay Bhattacharya had also been serving as acting CDC director since February.<\/p>\n<p>Schwartz, a retired Navy rear admiral, is a former deputy surgeon general with extensive <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dcms.uscg.mil\/Portals\/10\/senior_leaders\/bio\/EricaSchwartz.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">experience overseeing<\/a>\u00a0the U.S. Coast Guard&#8217;s health care system.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>She holds a bachelor&#8217;s degree in biomedical engineering from Brown University, an M.D. from Brown University, and a law degree from the University of Maryland. She has experience responding to pandemics, including outbreaks of Ebola and H1N1, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Schwartz will be the first Black woman to run the CDC.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Monarez, her predecessor, testified that she was pushed out of the agency because she declined to follow Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.&#8217;s vaccine recommendations, which she said were <span class=\"link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/debra-houry-cdc-measles-outbreak-rfk-jr\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\">not based on science<\/a><\/span>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Schwartz enters the job amid concerns about the Ebola outbreak in Africa, and as the Trump administration faces criticism over vaccine recommendations.\u00a0<\/p>\n<section class=\"content__body--footer\">\n<p class=\"content__meta--contributors\">\n<p>                      <span class=\"byline__author__text\">Alan  He<\/span><\/p>\n<p>        contributed to this report.\n    <\/p>\n<\/section>\n<p>  <!-- data-recirc-source=\"queryly\" --><\/p>\n<aside class=\"component list recirculation component--type-recirculation  \">\n<p><h3 class=\"component__title\">More from CBS News<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n<div class=\"component__item-recirc-block\">\n<p><h3 class=\"component__title\">Go deeper with The Free Press<\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<section class=\"content__body--footer\">\n      <!-- tags --><br \/>\n    <\/section>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Senate on Wednesday confirmed Dr. Erica Schwartz as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, giving the CDC its first official director in nearly a year.\u00a0 Schwartz was confirmed Wednesday by a vote of 51 to 44. The CDC has been without a Senate-confirmed director since late August 2025, when former director&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29177,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/assets2.cbsnewsstatic.com\/hub\/i\/r\/2026\/08\/05\/6ff7677f-2a27-4038-9015-f7c83152acc7\/thumbnail\/1200x630\/3a04518bf67380a4b1188a59c16390f5\/ap26196574439679.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-hub"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}