The CDC has a new director. The last one got fired for disagreeing with RFK Jr. about vaccines — the real kind, the kind that wiped out polio, not the Facebook comment section kind. The replacement is Dr. Erica Schwartz, previously of UnitedHealth Group, where she pulled $850,000 a year. At her confirmation hearing she said vaccines are safe and effective, then dodged every question about whether she’d push back if Kennedy told her otherwise. Said she was “unaware” of some of his policy changes. The whole audition was don’t know anything, don’t push back.
The agency she’s inheriting has lost over 3,000 employees since this administration decided public health was something that happened to other countries — more than a quarter of the entire workforce. Epidemiologists, disease trackers, people whose whole job was catching the next outbreak before it caught you. Gone. And now someone from the health insurance industry gets the keys. Going from UnitedHealth to the CDC only makes sense if the job description changed from “protect Americans from disease” to “don’t embarrass the health secretary.” RFK Jr. fired the last director for doing the job. This one watched that and still took the gig. That’s the whole resume.
Fifty-one senators voted yes. Forty-four said no. The building still has the sign on the door. A quarter of the people who made it mean something are gone and the new boss spent last year at the insurance company that profits when they fail. The disease is doing fine.