Erica Schwartz, the Trump administration’s third nominee to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, assured senators she supports vaccines in her confirmation hearing before the Senate Wednesday morning.
“My sacred responsibility is to provide the American people with public health guidance that’s clear, honest, and evidence-based,” Schwartz said in her opening remarks. “I will never betray the science.”
That’s what Sen. Bill Cassidy, the chair of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, said he was looking to hear.
The outgoing Louisiana Republican, who has clashed with the administration over Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s policies loosening vaccine recommendations, set the tone early.
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“Vaccines are overwhelmingly safe and effective,” he said in his opening statement. “Any equivocation of these facts, and I shall not be able to support the nomination.”
When Cassidy asked whether she would object to policies she disagreed with and “stand up to crazy, stupid things being said,” Schwartz told the senator, “I will go where the science leads us and I will not have predetermined answers.”
Schwartz said that she would prioritize “restoring trust in public health institutions through radical transparency and unwavering scientific integrity.”
The embattled CDC has been without a permanent director since last summer, when Susan Monarez was ousted for refusing to sign off on vaccine policies put forward by Kennedy. Since then, National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya has served as acting leader of the CDC.
Schwartz’s background and public health credentials — she served as chief medical officer of the U.S. Coast Guard and as a deputy U.S. surgeon general during the first Trump administration — put her on slightly better footing than Trump’s other health agency nominees. Still, senators who are skeptical that Kennedy and the Make America Healthy Again movement can present a winning strategy for leading the public health agencies in advance of this year’s midterms wanted to know whether Schwartz would be able to steady the ship.
Kennedy has continued to push for changes to vaccine recommendations, though he has faced roadblocks from the courts and from the White House itself.
Schwartz pleaded ignorance to the administration’s approach. She told Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) that she didn’t think Trump or Kennedy would ever implement unscientific policies.
“Really. You think that is?” Sanders asked. He then ended the line of questioning.
Schwartz appeared alongside Sean Kaufman, Trump’s pick for the Department of Health and Human Services assistant secretary for preparedness and response. Kaufman has served as a senior adviser for global affairs at the CDC and has a background in infectious disease prevention.
But he also has a history of making comments skeptical of vaccines.
In a since-deleted May 2025 Linkedin post, he questioned the safety of mRNA vaccines and argued against giving infants the hepatitis B vaccine.
“The risk-to-benefit ratio for vaccinating infants under these circumstances doesn’t exactly scream ‘urgent,’” Kaufman wrote. The deleted Linkedin post was first reported by STAT News.
Cassidy told Kaufman in his opening statement that he had reviewed the recent reporting on his comments and would give him the chance to respond to them.
Kaufman quickly expressed support for vaccines in his opening statement.
“Let me be clear: Vaccines save lives. They are safe and effective and remain one of the most important tools in public health for preventing infectious diseases and protecting the American people,” Kaufman said.
Cassidy got heated when questioning Kaufman about his past statements.
“Why would you repeat these damn lies?” he asked Kaufman, his voice rising.
Kaufman said he would support vaccines and vaccine research if confirmed and believed vaccines were “gold standard public health.”
Schwartz, for her part, voiced support for vaccines in a post on Instagram last year. (Her profile has since been deleted.)
The next CDC director will have to deal with an agency that’s weathered staffing and funding cuts, as well as a shooting at its Atlanta headquarters last year. U.S. health agencies are also currently responding to the ongoing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the cyclospora outbreak that’s sickened thousands across the U.S.
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