Senators voted to advance Susan Monarez’s nomination to head the public health agency.
A Senate committee on July 9 voted to advance the nomination of Susan Monarez to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Senators on the Senate Health Committee in a 12–11 vote advanced the nomination to the full upper chamber. A simple majority was required.
“The United States needs a CDC director who makes decisions rooted in science. A leader who will work to reform the agency and work to restore public trust in health institutions. With decades in proven experience as a public health official, Dr. Monarez is ready to take on this challenge,” said Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), the chairman of the panel.
CDC directors did not need to be confirmed by the Senate in the past, but a provision in a funding bill mandated Senate confirmation, starting in January.
Monarez told the Senate committee in June that she would refocus the CDC on infectious diseases but that she counted as important helping the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) agenda promoted by President Donald Trump and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., her future boss.
“As CDC refocuses its efforts specifically on communicable diseases to prevent, detect, and respond to infectious diseases and emerging threats, we’ll be laser-focused on that area, but we will continue, and I will continue, to make sure that we’re supporting the secretary’s vision of overall Making America Healthy Again,” she said at the time.
Monarez also declined to outline decisions Kennedy has made with which she disagrees, prompting consternation from some Democrat senators.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the top minority member on the committee, said he was voting against Trump’s nominee because Monarez “has done nothing to stand in the way” of Trump administration actions such as cuts to public health funding that Sanders said served to “undermine the vital mission of the CDC, jeopardizing the health, safety, and wellbeing of millions of people, both at home and abroad.”
After starting his second term, Trump nominated former Rep. Dave Weldon (R-Fla.), a doctor, to the post of CDC director. Trump withdrew that nomination in March because it appeared the Senate Health Committee would not vote to advance Weldon to the full Senate due to opposition from several Republicans, including Cassidy.
The GOP controls the Senate, giving the party more seats on each committee.
Weldon said that the nomination was withdrawn because senators were concerned about his past work looking into the safety of vaccines.
Trump then nominated Monarez, who was acting CDC director, describing her as having decades of experience in public health and other fields.
