NEW YORK — In her first large staff meeting, the new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention promised Wednesday to advocate for the agency while acknowledging that congressionally funded programs lacked staff and employees were feeling burned out.
Dr. Erica Schwartz also said she wouldn’t hesitate to disagree with U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. if necessary – but said she wouldn’t do so publicly.
Schwartz started as head of the Atlanta-based federal agency last week, taking the reins from a series of temporary directors. She spoke to CDC employees Wednesday at her first “all hands” staff meeting. The Associated Press heard a recording of the meeting.
Schwartz mentioned an AP story this week about CDC programs that have congressional appropriations but functionally are dead or nearly dead because the CDC staffers who did the work were laid off by President Donald Trump’s administration or remain on leave.
She did not say exactly what she will do about these “zombie” programs and about staffers who feel exhausted and overloaded, but said she will meet with CDC staffers to learn more about the situation and what can be done.
“The good news is, I’m here,” she said. “I’m Week 1 of being here, and now I can certainly be able to advocate for the CDC. I think when you have (had) that leadership vacuum, it’s, you know, it’s hard to get that advocacy.”
Schwartz previously served in uniformed government jobs with the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Public Health Service. When she disagrees with other leaders she does so in private, “because that’s just part of the uniformed service person in me,” she said. She said she would continue to do so, but “not in front of the media.”
She also promised to build public trust in the agency through “radical transparency, scientific rigor and honest communications,” echoing language used by Kennedy.
Schwartz is the 22nd leader of the CDC, which is charged with protecting Americans from preventable health threats. In her talk Wednesday, she acknowledged the challenges agency employees have faced.
Largely due to layoffs and resignations, the agency has lost 3,000-plus employees, more than one-quarter of its workforce. Morale has plummeted as a succession of mostly temporary leaders has come and gone. The front office has been staffed by political appointees with little or no training in medicine or public health.
Kennedy, a leading voice in the anti-vaccine movement, took several steps that ran counter to CDC research and recommendations, including disbanding an expert advisory committee and appointing his own panel that included several vaccine skeptics.
CDC staffers asked questions Wednesday, including one about Trump’s executive order calling for revamped childhood vaccine recommendations that promote his long-held but discredited theory that childhood shots should be spaced out into separate medical visits.
Schwartz said a task force on childhood vaccine safety is being established and she is on the panel. It has not met yet, she said. The panel has been given 90 days to report to Trump, she added.
Some current and former CDC employees said Schwartz appeared to be earnest, but want to see what she does.
The National Public Health Coalition, an organization of former and current CDC workers, issued a statement after the meeting.
“CDC staff and the American people deserve a strong, independent leader who will follow the science, defend public health expertise and put the health and safety of the public ahead of political pressure,” the statement said. “Dr. Schwartz has spoken about rebuilding trust. That trust must be earned through action.”
