The new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention vowed to be an accessible and transparent leader as she seeks to rebuild trust within the country’s premier public health agency, which has been battered by mass firings, low staff morale and a revolving door of leaders over the last 18 months.
Dr. Erica Schwartz, in what was billed as her first public appearance since being confirmed to her post six weeks ago, told a healthcare conference on Wednesday that she wanted CDC staff to feel emboldened to speak up when they disagree with her.
“I want them to feel comfortable saying, ‘Dr. Schwartz, we’re going to tell you what you need to know, not what you want to know,’” she told the hundreds of attendees at the Health Connect South Gathering in downtown Atlanta. “And that really starts with having that psychologically safe environment.”
Schwartz acknowledged that employee morale is at an all-time low and said she wants staff to “hold me accountable.”
“My job is to earn your trust day by day,” she said, later adding the public health workforce gave her the most optimism about the future of the field.
Schwartz’s upbeat, conciliatory tone is a stark departure from the rhetoric from senior Trump administration officials early last year when they gutted entire departments at the Atlanta-based CDC. Between departures and mass firings, the agency has lost roughly one-quarter of its workforce — more than 3,000 people — since its peak in 2024, according to federal data.
Much of that was before a gunman opened fire outside of agency headquarters one year ago, killing first responder David Rose and leaving many staff members traumatized.
Schwartz is the first Black woman to lead the CDC and the first permanent leader to head the agency in a year. Her predecessor, Susan Monarez, was ousted after less than a month on the job after fighting with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over vaccines. The agency was then led by a series of acting directors until the Senate confirmed Schwartz in early August.
Mum on measles fight
Schwartz, who has medical and law degrees, was celebrated for having more traditional credentials compared to some of President Donald Trump’s other top health officials. She previously held uniformed jobs with the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Public Health Service and served as deputy surgeon general during the first Trump administration.
But some observers have since criticized Schwartz for not being more visible during her opening weeks at the agency, especially amid the worst measles outbreak in more than three decades.
Under questioning at the conference from Samantha Brown-Parks, HHS’s Atlanta-based regional director, Schwartz did not discuss measles nor the administration’s work on vaccines — another hot-button issue that has generated an avalanche of headlines in recent months.
Credit: Miguel Martinez/AJC
Credit: Miguel Martinez/AJC
After the event, Schwartz did not respond to a reporter’s question about Pennsylvania’s fourth measles-related death, which was identified on Tuesday.
In recent weeks, Schwartz has drawn considerable heat from public health professionals for her highly unusual decision not to accept Pennsylvania’s reporting of its first measles-related deaths in the CDC’s official tally of nationwide cases.
The agency said there was not enough available information to confirm whether measles caused or merely contributed to the deaths. And on the social media site X, formerly Twitter, the agency retweeted a post from Kennedy that lambasted Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro for “fearmongering, misinformation, finger-pointing, and the weaponization of infectious disease fears for political gain.”
It added, “Under President Trump’s and Secretary Kennedy’s leadership, CDC will follow the facts and tell the American people the truth,” the agency posted, adding it was “working to determine what actually occurred.”
As of Friday, the most recent data available, the CDC reported 3,294 confirmed measles cases and zero measles deaths in the U.S. this year. The site includes an asterisk, clarifying that the National Center for Health Statistics “does not currently have any death records from 2026 that indicate measles is the underlying cause.”
Earlier this week, three top Democrats on the U.S. House panel that oversees healthcare policy wrote to Schwartz demanding a briefing and accusing her of attempting to “conceal public health data” from Americans.
“Your decision to depart from CDC’s routine reporting practices and reject the sound determinations of state public health officials publicly minimizes the magnitude of this deadly outbreak, sacrificing science and transparency in service of (Kennedy’s) unsupported anti-vaccine ideology,” they wrote in a letter to Schwartz on Monday. “In less than one month since your confirmation by the Senate, your assurances that you will ‘follow the science, wherever it leads’ are falling flat.”
In Georgia, the state Department of Public Health has confirmed 16 measles cases so far this year, including 10 at an unnamed metro Atlanta daycare.
Scientific rigor
At the conference, Schwartz also discussed her plans for rebuilding public trust in the CDC.
She promised to focus on scientific rigor and on being accessible to leaders in the healthcare field. She also vowed to be more communicative with the public about how it reaches its scientific conclusions and to do so with humility.
“I don’t want to sort of have a predetermined conclusion,” she said. “I want to make sure that whatever we do, wherever the science takes us, that’s where we tell the American people.”
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