Key takeaways:

• Senators confirmed Erica Schwartz, MD, JD, MPH, as the next CDC director.
• She was confirmed in a 51-44 vote on Wednesday, largely along party lines.

Erica Schwartz, MD, JD, MPH, will become the first full-time director of the CDC in nearly 1 year after senators confirmed her to the post on Wednesday, largely along party lines.

Senators voted 51-44 in favor of Schwartz’s confirmation, with all Republicans voting “yea” and all Democrats except Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., voting “nay.”

Erica Schwartz will be the first full-time director of the CDC in nearly 1 year. Image: help.senate.gov.

Five senators — two Democrats and three Republicans — did not vote. Kaine was also the only Democrat who voted in support of her nomination in committee last week.

Schwartz served as deputy surgeon general during Trump’s first presidential term. She spent 24 years as an occupational medicine physician in the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard and was the U.S. Coast Guard’s chief medical officer and director of health, safety and work life from 2015 to 2019.

She will take the reins of a public health agency that has been without a permanent director since Susan Monarez, PhD, was fired last August after less than a month on the job.

During Schwartz’s nomination hearing, she told senators that her goal as CDC director would be to restore trust in public health institutions and modernize the CDC's response to infectious disease outbreaks.

Schwartz also said she would “lead with integrity” and would not betray science.

Paul A. Offit, MD, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told Healio after her nomination hearing that he was not convinced by her statements.

For more on the nomination process and reaction to Schwartz’s hearing, check out our collection of healthcare policy stories.