Aug. 5 (UPI) — The U.S. Senate voted Wednesday to confirm Dr. Erica Schwartz as the leader of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, finally installing a new director for the agency after nearly a year.
Schwartz was deputy surgeon general during President Donald Trump‘s first term. She is a retired U.S. Coast Guard officer and Navy physician.
The vote Wednesday was 51-44, mostly along party lines, NBC News reported. Sen.Tim Kaine, D-Va., voted with Republicans to approve Schwartz.
Schwartz succeeds Dr. Susan Monarez, who was fired by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in August after less than a month in the job, allegedly because she disagreed with Kennedy about vaccines.
Monarez was followed by several acting directors — first Jim O’Neill, Kennedy’s deputy secretary, and then Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the director of the National Institutes of Health.
The White House nominated Schwartz to fill the role in April. Kennedy said that he hadn’t spoken to Trump about nominating her.
Schwartz has a background of supporting and guiding vaccination programs for the government. She said at a Senate hearing in July that vaccines are safe and effective, although some health experts said she didn’t do enough to distance herself from some of Kennedy’s views, NBC News reported.
“As CDC director, my sacred responsibility is to provide the American people with public health guidance that is clear, honest and evidence based,” Schwartz said. “I will never betray the science.”
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., chairman of the Health, Education,Labor and Pensions Committee and a medical doctor, criticized Schwartz during the hearing for allegedly dodging his questions.
However, he said he chose to vote for Schwartz on Wednesday after they were able to talk again.
“I am confident that she knows what she is doing and will stand against those who do not,” he said during a committee meeting in July. “If confirmed, I look forward to working with Dr. Schwartz to protect children’s health and regain trust in the CDC. There’s more to do to repair the damage that has been done to the U.S. public health response, but this is a start.”
The National Public Health Coalition, an advocacy group containing many former CDC employees, said last month that it would not support Schwartz’s nomination based on the July hearing.
“The public needed to hear clear commitments about how she would protect CDC guidance from political pressure,” it said in a statement. “Too often, her stated commitments were incomplete, vague or missing.”