CDC nominee faces a loyalty test
Before Dr Erica Schwartz could convince senators she was ready to lead the CDC, she first had to convince them she would not stray from the accepted boundaries on vaccines.
This week, Dr Erica Schwartz appeared before the Senate HELP Committee to make her case for leading the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
But before the nominee had answered a single question, the terms of her confirmation had already been laid down.
HELP Committee chairman Bill Cassidy wasted no time.
“A lot of this conversation for me is going to revolve around vaccines,” he announced. “Vaccines should be settled.”
He blamed “a flurry of misinformation” around immunisation, saying some people cast doubt on mRNA vaccines “for no other reason than people don’t understand them.”
Mothers and fathers, he said, had become “confused as to whether vaccines are safe to give their children.” The result was thousands of measles infections, with children hospitalised or dying from vaccine-preventable diseases.
Then came the ultimatum.
“Vaccines are overwhelmingly safe and effective,” Cassidy declared. “Study after study shows they do not cause autism.”
“Any equivocation on these facts,” he warned Schwartz, “and I shall not be able to support your nomination.”
Only then did the questioning begin.
Confirmation hearings are meant to test a nominee’s judgment, independence and fitness to lead. Instead, Cassidy announced the conclusions he expected Schwartz to affirm before she had given a single substantive answer.
From the outset, it was clear there was no room for dissent.