\n President Donald Trump is nominating a former Coast Guard officer and public health official to lead the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.\n <\/p>\n
\n The president named Dr. Erica Schwartz on Thursday to run the embattled agency, which has been without a permanent director since Dr. Susan Monarez\u2019s ouster in August.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt is my Honor to nominate the incredibly talented Dr. Erica Schwartz,\u201d Trump wrote<\/a> on Truth Social. \u201cShe is a STAR!\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Schwartz served as deputy surgeon general in Trump\u2019s first administration, spent 24 years in the US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and served as a rear admiral in the Coast Guard. She holds a medical degree from Brown University and a law degree from the University of Maryland.\n <\/p>\n \n US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his team had recommended Schwartz to the president along with a slate of other appointees to shore up CDC leadership whom Trump also named Thursday.\n <\/p>\n \n They include US Food and Drug Administration Principal Deputy Commissioner Dr. Sara Brenner<\/a>, who will serve as a public health adviser to Kennedy; Dr. Jennifer Shuford<\/a>, commissioner of the Texas health department, who will become CDC deputy director and chief medical officer; and Sean Slovenski, a former Walmart and Humana executive who will serve as a deputy director and chief operating officer.\n <\/p>\n \n The secretary nodded to the incoming group of CDC leaders during a congressional budget hearing on Thursday.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWe\u2019re bringing in an extraordinary team. \u2026 The team has been leaked, and it\u2019s gotten applause from both Republicans and Democrats,\u201d Kennedy said before the House Appropriations subcommittee on health. \u201cI think this new team is really going to be able to revolutionize CDC and get it back on track and get it doing the job that it does better than any other health agency in the world.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Schwartz certainly has a background in the CDC\u2019s areas of expertise. During her time with the Coast Guard, she led disease surveillance and vaccination programs and wrote Coast Guard policy on pandemic influenza and other viral disease outbreaks.\n <\/p>\n \n She also played a role in the government\u2019s response to natural disasters, including hurricanes and earthquakes.\n <\/p>\n \n Still, Schwartz will probably face skepticism from some senators over whether she\u2019s willing to break with Kennedy on controversial issues such as vaccine policy.\n <\/p>\n \n The White House was under a deadline<\/a> to nominate a permanent director of the CDC after Kennedy abruptly fired the last Senate-confirmed director, Monarez, in August. The federal Vacancies Act says a Senate-confirmed position can be open for only 210 days, and past that deadline, the agency cannot have an acting director. That 210-day mark fell in late March.\n <\/p>\n \n Currently, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya<\/a> is serving a dual role as director of the National Institutes of Health and as head of the CDC, after serving as its acting director.\n <\/p>\n \n If confirmed into the role, Schwartz will inherit an agency looking to strike a balance between its traditional public health mission and a slew of high-profile changes, exits and proposed budget cuts.\n <\/p>\n \n Monarez was in office for just under a month before she was fired<\/a> by Kennedy over her refusal to rubber-stamp changes to vaccine policy. After her dismissal, several high-level officials in the agency resigned in protest, leaving a leadership vacuum<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n Shortly after Monarez took office, a gunman who blamed vaccines for his health problems attacked the CDC\u2019s Atlanta headquarters, firing more than 180 rounds that sprayed multiple buildings and killed DeKalb County Police Officer David Rose.\n <\/p>\n