Erica Schwartz, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) nominee for US President Donald Trump, during a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee confirmation hearing in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, July 15, 2026.
Graeme Sloan | Bloomberg | Getty Images
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. PresidentDonald Trump’sthird pick to run the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,was confirmed 51-44. Shewill be the first permanentCDCdirector since Susan Monarez, Trump’s second pick,was firedby Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. last year after less than a month over aclash on vaccine policy.
Her confirmation follows months of leadership turmoil at theCDC, which has lacked a permanent leader for all but a month of Trump’s second term.
Schwartz inherits an agency confronting theworst U.S. measles resurgence in three decades, driven by falling childhood immunization rates, aninternational Ebola outbreakin the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda, and thelargest U.S. foodborne illness outbreakin recent years.
Trumpnominated 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.
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