President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be signaling that his administration is attempting to backpedal from its previously critical stance on vaccines.
Trump nominated Dr. Erica Schwartz as his pick to serve as the next director of the CDC, drawing criticism from some Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) advocates who are skeptical about the safety and efficacy of certain vaccines. Unlike Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and other leaders in the MAHA movement who have expressed skepticism of vaccines, Schwartz has publicly supported vaccination.
Toby Rogers, a fellow at the MAHA-aligned Brownstone Institute, criticized Schwartz for not denouncing “the crimes of the COVID era.”
“Unfortunately, Erica Schwartz represents more of the same failed approach that caused this crisis in the first place,” Rogers told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“The CDC is captured and corrupt. It must be massively restructured or closed,” he continued. “To my knowledge, Dr. Erica Schwartz has never publicly spoken out against the crimes of the COVID era, the ineffectiveness of the flu shot, or the injuries caused by the bloated CDC childhood vaccine schedule. She is the wrong choice to lead the CDC at this critical time.”
Schwartz, who requires Senate approval to be confirmed as the CDC’s director, served as Trump’s deputy surgeon general from January 2019 to April 2021, where she led the country’s public health deployment in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to becoming deputy surgeon general, Schwartz worked as chief medical officer for the U.S. Coast Guard, where she oversaw disease surveillance efforts and developed policies addressing pandemic influenza, Ebola and other viral outbreaks.
Trump’s new CDC nominee has previously led government vaccination programs and managed crisis responses, and was involved in drafting vaccine mandates for smallpox and anthrax that applied to certain Coast Guard personnel while she oversaw its health care system.
Moreover, Schwartz helped oversee the nationwide rollout of COVID-19 vaccines and acted as the HHS’ point person during the presidential transition from Trump’s first administration to the Biden administration, ABC News reported.
Schwartz played an instrumental role in the federal government’s testing efforts at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, serving as a physician who oversaw the large-scale ordering of tests used at drive-through sites, Fierce Healthcare reported.
Notably, the White House was seeking a CDC director nominee who possessed more traditional health credentials and would not draw criticism for promoting vaccine skepticism, The Wall Street Journal reported on April 10, citing anonymous sources familiar with the matter.
Rogers also emphasized the importance of the Trump administration doing more to improve children’s health in America.
“Over half of all children in this country have one or more chronic health conditions,” Rogers said. “It’s the largest crisis in American history. The evidence is overwhelming that a large percentage of these chronic health conditions are caused by iatrogenic injury. We need to change course in this country.”
It remains unclear how Schwartz, if confirmed, may steer the CDC’s public health policies and vaccine guidance.
Butterfly Network, where Schwartz serves on the board of directors, did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
Prior to her transfer to the Public Health Service and Coast Guard in 2005, she was a Navy Occupational Medicine physician, where her assignments included working as the Chief of the Occupational Medicine Clinic and the Immunization Clinic and serving as the Preventive Medicine Department Head at the Naval Medical Clinic in Annapolis, MD, according to her Coast Guard bio.
Aaron Siri, managing partner of Siri & Glimstad LLP and a longtime ally of Kennedy, wrote in an April 18 Substack post that Schwartz “led nationwide Covid-19 vaccine deployment and has, with threat and force, mandated almost every major vaccine on civilians and military members, including mandating injection of smallpox, anthrax, and flu vaccines into U.S. Forces, and disciplining those who refused,” adding that “this track record alone reflects she lacks the basic ethics and morals to lead the CDC.”
“Her prior promotion, let alone mandates, of nearly a dozen different vaccines leave little hope she will objectively oversee CDC’s vaccine program which has, between 1986 and the 2026, gone from 3 injections to 29 injections, including in utero, by an infant’s first birthday, while chronic childhood disease has gone from under 10% to over 40% of children, most related to immune system dysregulation,” he continued.
Siri told the DCNF that if Schwartz is confirmed to lead the CDC, he thinks she should prioritize combating the rising rates of chronic diseases among U.S. children, which he claims corresponds with an increase in childhood vaccines.
“The increase in childhood chronic disease from under 10% in the early 1980s to over 40% today [corresponds] with the rise in childhood vaccines from 3 injections to 29 injections by one year of age, as well as vaccine safety beyond chronic health issues,” he stated.
Siri also emphasized that “all children are precious and we should care about all children: those that could be harmed from an infectious disease and those that could be harmed from the products at issue.” He added that “if vaccines are safe, as claimed by health authorities for decades, why do pharma and physicians need immunity for harms?”
An HHS spokesperson told the DCNF in a statement that “the new CDC leadership team reflects our commitment to restoring the agency to its core mission of fighting infectious diseases.”
“Secretary Kennedy looks forward to working closely with them to rebuild trust in public health by increasing transparency, upholding gold-standard science, and ensuring Americans have the clear, reliable information they need to improve their health outcomes,” the spokesperson added.
White House Spokesman Kush Desai told the DCNF in a statement that Schwartz “is eminently qualified to restore Gold Standard Science at the CDC, from her top-notch credentials to her military service to her experience as a Deputy Surgeon General in the first Trump administration.”
“The White House looks [forward] to her swift confirmation by the Senate to help President Trump deliver on his agenda to Make America Healthy Again,” he continued.
“So, if we’re talking about someone being under attack [from some MAHA supporters], well, the first thing is, if it’s someone that President Trump wants [in the role], then I don’t really see a political issue of it,” longtime pollster and political analyst John Couvillon told the DCNF. “The only time I could see it hypothetically being issue, is if, let’s say, [Schwartz] had advocated [for] you know, not only the COVID vaccines, but the draconian policies that were being proposed in 2020, 21, and 22, Well, that’s the entirely different discussion.”
“[With] vaccinations [and] vaccines in general, where there is fairly broad support, and then you have the COVID vaccines, where that is much less popular [among Americans],” he added.
Former U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams, who personally selected Schwartz as his deputy surgeon general during the first Trump administration, told CBS News’ “Face The Nation” on Sunday that Schwartz “still has to get through Senate confirmation, where she will clearly be pitted against RFK on vaccines.” Adams has repeatedly publicly supported vaccines in recent years.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Adams promoted the widespread usage of face masks to curb asymptomatic spread, Business Insider reported in July 2020. He also claimed during a June 2020 White House briefing that wearing masks could be “an instrument of freedom” for Americans, The Hill reported.
“Wear a face covering when you go out in public,” Adams said, per The Hill. “It is not an inconvenience. It is not a suppression of your freedom. It actually is a vehicle to achieve our goals.”
“It adds to your convenience and your freedom because it allows us to open up more places, and it allows those places to stay open,” he continued, while holding up his own mask. “This mask, this face covering, actually is an instrument of freedom for Americans if we all use it.”
Kennedy asserted in an August 2025 X post that his “job” as the head of HHS was to “restore trust in the vaccine program so that parents know we’re telling them the truth.” However, he has been publicly talking about vaccines much less in recent months as the Trump administration is aiming to promote low-risk messaging ahead of November’s midterms, Bloomberg reported.
Trump’s HHS Secretary congratulated Schwartz on her nomination in an April 16 social media post, asserting that he is looking forward to “working together to restore trust, accountability, and scientific integrity” at the CDC “so we can return it to its core mission and Make America Healthy Again.” Still, Kennedy publicly declined to commit to backing Schwartz’s vaccine recommendations during a congressional hearing on Tuesday, The New York Times reported.
Trump had previously nominated former Florida Rep. David Weldon, a vaccine skeptic, to lead the CDC, but his Senate confirmation hearing in March 2025 was abruptly canceled just an hour before it was scheduled to start. Weldon later said he had been informed that not enough senators intended to support his nomination.
The Senate confirmed Susan Monarez as Trump’s CDC director in July 2025. The Trump administration ousted Monarez the next month after she refused to step down.
Monarez alleged in September 2025 that she was fired the month prior for not approving changes to vaccine policy “regardless of the scientific evidence,” BBC News reported.
National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya had been serving as acting director for the CDC, but his title expired in March under federal law, according to CNBC. Bhattacharya has been a prominent critic of vaccine mandates, including those enacted during the COVID-19 pandemic.
A recent Politico poll conducted by Public First found that a plurality of Americans currently feel skeptical about the safety of vaccines.
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact [email protected].
