‘Cause for Real Concern’: MAHA Activists Criticize Trump’s Pick to Lead CDC
This doesn't look good.
This article originally appeared on The Defender and was republished with permission.
Guest post by Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D.
Dr. Erica Schwartz, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the CDC, is a physician and former Coast Guard officer and public health official. In a video posted on Instagram, Schwartz said, “When I was a military physician, my job was all about readiness. It was all about public health prevention, vaccines, early detection.”
President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) drew mixed reactions — including disappointment from some supporters of the administration’s “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) movement.
Trump nominated Dr. Erica Schwartz, a physician and former Coast Guard officer and public health official, on Thursday to lead the CDC. Schwartz served as deputy surgeon general during the first Trump administration.
The Wall Street Journal first broke the story just before Trump confirmed the news on Truth Social.
Trump praised Schwartz’s “distinguished career,” calling her a “star.” According to The New York Times, she holds degrees in biomedical engineering, medicine, public health and law.
In a post on X, U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also praised Schwartz, stating that she will help return the CDC to “its core mission” and help “Make America Healthy Again.”
Alongside Schwartz’s nomination, Trump announced three new appointments to key CDC leadership posts:
Dr. Sara Brenner, currently the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) principal deputy commissioner, was named public health adviser to Kennedy.
Dr. Jennifer Shuford, currently commissioner of the Texas Department of Health and Human Services, was named CDC deputy director and chief operating officer.
Sean Slovenski, former president of Walmart Health & Wellness, was named deputy director and chief operating officer of the CDC.
According to the Times, the White House is “veering away” from Kennedy’s “vaccine skepticism” in the lead-up to this year’s midterm elections. The Washington Post reported that polls have shown “vaccines could be a GOP liability” in this year’s elections.
Other polls, however, have shown broad — and growing — support for stricter safety reviews of vaccines and rising opposition to mandates.
STAT reported that Schwartz’s nomination “comes amid an increasingly charged relationship” with the MAHA movement, which “has wavered this year.” According to the WSJ, the White House sought “a nominee who would minimize controversy.” This “has frustrated” the MAHA base, STAT reported.
Internal medicine physician Dr. Clayton J. Baker told The Defender that “as long as Secretary Kennedy is leading HHS, I think we are not at the end of MAHA.” However, Schwartz’s nomination “appears to run contrary to the MAHA approach.”
When asked to comment on the nomination, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which oversees the CDC, referred The Defender to Kennedy’s post on X.
Schwartz has ‘long track record’ of supporting vaccines
During a congressional budget hearing Thursday, Kennedy hinted at the upcoming announcement, saying, “we’re bringing in an extraordinary team” that’s “gotten applause from both Republicans and Democrats” and that will “revolutionize CDC.”
But health and medical freedom advocates, including many supporters of the MAHA movement, took to social media to express disappointment in the selections — particularly Schwartz’s nomination.
In a post on X, attorney Aaron Siri — who represents several vaccine injury victims and delivered a “scathing” presentation on the childhood immunization schedule to the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices last year — criticized Schwartz for her “long track record” of supporting vaccines and vaccine mandates.
“This agency does not need another cheerleader for industry; it needs a regulator over industry. Her prior promotion, let alone mandates, of nearly a dozen different vaccines leave little hope she will objectively oversee CDC’s vaccine program,” Siri wrote. His post included links with “examples of Schwartz mandating vaccines.”
Political economist Toby Rogers, Ph.D., a fellow with the Brownstone Institute for Social and Economic Research, wrote on X that Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, who made waves last year for announcing the end of vaccine mandates in the state, would have been a better choice.
“Instead the White House is leaning toward Erica Schwartz who ordered the fraudulent PCR tests that were part of the Covid psyop,” Rogers wrote.
According to the Times, Schwartz, who ran the government’s COVID-19 testing program during the pandemic, has “publicly supported vaccines and preventive medicine.”
CNN reported that Schwartz also promoted vaccination during her tenure at the U.S. Coast Guard, “led disease surveillance and vaccination programs and wrote Coast Guard policy on pandemic influenza and other viral disease outbreaks.” Schwartz served in the Coast Guard between 2005 and 2019.
The Hill reported that beginning in October 2025, Schwartz “started getting more active on social media,” sharing her views on public health matters, including vaccination.
In a video posted on Instagram for National Public Health Week, Schwartz said, “When I was a military physician, my job was all about readiness. It was all about public health prevention, vaccines, early detection. If we get that right, we change lives before illness ever begins.”
Schwartz’s track record on vaccination likely contributed to the praise she received from several former public health officials and vaccine proponents.
Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, former head of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, who resigned last year, said Schwartz showed “good leadership” during the COVID-19 pandemic and has a “proven track record … notably with pandemic preparedness.”
Lawrence O. Gostin, a professor of global public health law at Georgetown University, director of the World Health Organization’s Collaborating Center on Public Health Law & Human Rights and a noted vaccine proponent, called Schwartz a “credible” choice to lead the CDC.
Baker said, “Any nominee openly praised by the likes of Daskalakis and roundly discredited by Aaron Siri is cause for real concern.”
“Siri convincingly argues — giving specific examples — that Dr. Schwartz’s track record at the Coast Guard and during COVID was unremittingly pro-vaccine, at the expense of individual rights,” Baker said.
Texas physician Dr. Mary Talley Bowden said she doesn’t fully agree with Siri’s criticism of Schwartz. Despite the links Siri shared, there is a “dearth of evidence on where Schwartz stands with vaccines, particularly with the COVID shot,” she said.
“Either they’ve scrubbed it all from the internet or they picked her because she checks all the boxes and is not controversial,” Bowden said. She said Schwartz’s nomination would not help restore trust in public health institutions in the U.S., arguing that the COVID-19 pandemic left a “festering wound in our country.”
New CDC picks include MAHA supporter, vaccine and testing proponents
Schwartz was part of a mixed bag of selections for key CDC posts announced Thursday.
Brenner previously questioned the safety of the COVID-19 vaccines and has publicly supported the MAHA movement. Shuford and Slovenski have adopted public positions in favor of vaccines and the official pandemic response.
Brenner, who last year briefly acted as FDA commissioner, is a preventive medicine and public health physician. In 2025, she made waves when she told the MAHA Institute Round Table that she refused the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine while pregnant, a decision prompted by a lack of safety data.
As acting FDA commissioner last year, Brenner intervened to pause the FDA’s review and approval process for the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine, calling for more data. She is publicly aligned with the MAHA movement and “MAHA moms” and has worked with Feds for Freedom, a group of federal workers advocating for informed consent.
Shuford has worked with the Texas HHS since 2017 and became chief state epidemiologist in 2020 and commissioner in 2022. During the pandemic, she said the COVID-19 vaccines “are doing an excellent job of protecting people from getting sick and from dying from COVID-19” and criticized “vaccine hesitancy.”
In 2019, Shuford promoted measles vaccination as the best means of protection against the disease.
Unlike Brenner and Shuford, Slovenski’s background is in the private sector instead of public health. Until 2020, he was president of Walmart Health & Wellness, overseeing the expansion of COVID-19 testing and mandates at Walmart stores.
Later, as CEO of BioIQ, Slovenski publicly supported vaccination as part of COVID-19 risk reduction. He also promoted testing before attending family gatherings during the pandemic. BiolQ focuses on diagnostic and at-home testing and on immunization and vaccination programs for employers and health plans.
White House under legal pressure to nominate a CDC director
According to CNN, Trump was under pressure to nominate a permanent director for the CDC. Kennedy fired its previous Senate-confirmed director, Susan Monarez, in August 2025, after they clashed over vaccine policy. Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health, was named acting director.
However, according to the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, a Senate-confirmed position can remain vacant only for 210 days — after which an acting director cannot hold that position. That 210-day period expired last month.
CNN reported that despite her pro-vaccine views, Schwartz “will probably face skepticism from some senators over whether she’s willing to break with Kennedy on controversial issues such as vaccine policy.”
Baker suggested that, with a legislative deadline looming, the White House may have sought to make a temporary move and that Schwartz’s nomination may not imply long-term support toward her on the part of the Trump administration.
“It’s possible that Schwartz serves as a placeholder nomination going into the midterms. The timing fits with this hypothesis,” Baker said.
Baker suggested Schwartz’s nomination faces the risk of stalling in Congress, despite her support for vaccines.
Baker said, “I suspect either Dr. Schwartz will sail through confirmation, or it will be delayed indefinitely, as has been the case with Dr. Casey Means,” Trump’s nominee for surgeon general.
Related articles in The Defender
Trump Fires CDC Director Who Clashed With RFK Jr. Over Vaccine Policy
‘Many Things That Were Not Right’: Top FDA Official Refused COVID Shot While Pregnant
Kennedy Accuses Congress of ‘Decades of Failed Policy,’ Defends HHS Focus on Chronic Disease
Vaccine Skepticism in U.S. Is Widespread, Politico Poll Reveals
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