US Senate confirms Schwartz as CDC director

The US Senate confirmed Dr Erica Schwartz as director of the CDC, handing the Trump administration a rare win, despite months of leadership turmoil at the agency.

The ‌U.S. Senate ​on Wednesday confirmed Dr. Erica Schwartz as director of the U.S. CDC, handing the Trump administration ‌a rare win after repeated failed attempts to fill top health posts. Schwartz, U.S. President Donald Trump's third pick to run the Centers for Disease ‌Control and Prevention, was confirmed 51-44. She will be the first permanent ‌CDC director since Susan Monarez, Trump's second pick, was fired by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. last year after less than a month over a clash on ⁠vaccine ​policy.

Her confirmation follows ⁠months of leadership turmoil at the CDC, which has lacked a permanent leader for ⁠all but a month of Trump's second term. Schwartz inherits an agency confronting the ​worst U.S. measles resurgence in three decades, driven by falling childhood immunization ⁠rates, an international Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda, ⁠and ​the largest U.S. foodborne illness outbreak in recent years.

Trump nominated Schwartz, his first-term deputy surgeon general, in April. The 54-year-old is a ⁠board-certified preventive medicine physician who served as the U.S. Coast Guard's chief medical ⁠officer from ⁠2015 to 2019. She holds a medical degree from Brown University and a law degree from the University of ‌Maryland.