The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on Wednesday voted along party lines, 12-11, to advance Susan Monarez, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to the Senate floor.
The committee vote was a first, as the position of CDC director didn’t need confirmation until the requirement was added in the 2023 omnibus.
Monarez was seen as a less controversial pick after the Trump administration pulled the nomination of former Rep. Dave Weldon, whose views on vaccines worried some senators.
She formerly served as the deputy director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health and, most recently, was the CDC acting director.
Immediately following the vote, committee member Patty Murray, D-Wash., criticized the Trump administration and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for propagating vaccine conspiracy theories and questioning their safety.
Monarez has largely declined to separate herself from Kennedy’s views on vaccines, and, during a Senate hearing last month, deflected questions about Kennedy’s firing of members of a CDC vaccine advisory committee and his handling of the U.S. measles outbreak.
“I really do hope Dr. Monarez will defy my expectations. I hope she will stand up for science, and put public health first,” Murray said. “But I had that expectation for others.”
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