Trump Picks Public Health Veteran As CDC Leader As Admin Shifts Tone On Vaccines
President Donald Trump’s new pick to lead the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is a public health veteran who has led vaccination programs, a new sign of the administration’s shifting views on vaccines.
Dr. Erica Schwartz’s nomination to lead the embattled agency came just hours after US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s appearance at a congressional hearing where he made some of his most supportive comments yet on vaccination.
The measles vaccine is safe and effective “for most people” and can be safer than getting measles, Kennedy said Thursday morning under Democrats’ grilling before the House Ways and Means Committee.
Schwartz served as deputy surgeon general in Trump’s first administration, spent 24 years in the US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and served as a rear admiral in the Coast Guard.
