The new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention used her first agency-wide staff meeting to say out loud what her workforce already knew. Programs Congress funded do not have the people to run them; employees are burned out, and the agency has been operating without an advocate at the top.
Dr. Erica Schwartz, who took over the Atlanta-based agency last week after roughly a year of acting leadership, spoke Wednesday at her first all-hands gathering. The Associated Press reported the contents from a recording of the meeting, and NBC News separately reviewed a transcript.
She did not announce fixes. She described a diagnosis and said she would meet with staff to learn more. For households, the relevance is narrow but real: outbreak response, laboratory turnaround, and the speed of a local exposure notice depend on whether the people who do that work are in place. The meeting was an acknowledgment that in some programs, they are not.
Week One Framed as the End of a Leadership Vacuum
Schwartz's central claim was about position rather than plan. "I'm Week 1 of being here," she said, adding that she can now advocate for the CDC and that a leadership vacuum makes that difficult.
She was direct about how she will handle disagreement with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. She said she would not hesitate to disagree when warranted, but would do so privately, attributing the instinct to her background in the uniformed services with the Coast Guard and the Public Health Service. Not, she said, in front of the media.
She also pledged to rebuild public confidence through transparency, scientific rigor and honest communication, language that closely tracks phrasing Kennedy has used.
Schwartz is a physician and attorney who served as deputy surgeon general during the first Trump administration and as chief medical officer of the U.S. Coast Guard, and is a retired rear admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. She holds undergraduate and medical degrees from Brown University, a master's in public health from the Uniformed Services University, and a law degree from the University of Maryland. The Senate confirmed her on a mostly party-line vote of 51 to 44, making her the agency's 22nd director.
Funded Programs with Nobody Left to Run Them
The specific problem Schwartz addressed has an informal name inside the agency. Staff have described "zombie" programs that hold congressional appropriations but function barely or not at all because the employees who ran them were laid off or remain on leave.
The scale behind that is documented. The CDC has shed more than 3,000 employees through layoffs and resignations, more than a quarter of its workforce.
MedicalDaily reported this week on one example: a CDC dementia program that no longer has staff to administer it, leaving grantees without federal support. Schwartz referenced an Associated Press report on stalled programs during the meeting and said she would talk with employees about work halted or put at risk by layoffs and furloughs.
She did not commit to restarting any specific program or to a hiring timeline. Asked by a staff member whether the agency can still handle detailed outbreak work after a large reduction in force, she said the CDC is prepared to respond.
A Vaccine Task Force Raised from the Floor
Staff used the meeting to ask about a presidential executive order on childhood immunization schedules issued earlier this month. Schwartz said a task force on childhood vaccine safety is being formed, that she sits on it alongside representatives from the FDA and the National Institutes of Health, and that it has 90 days to report back. It has not yet met.
She added that her understanding is the task force is not designed to replace the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, the panel that makes vaccine recommendations to the CDC director and whose decisions flow into insurance coverage requirements and the Vaccines for Children program.
Schwartz also told staff, according to the meeting transcript, "I absolutely believe that vaccines are safe and effective."At her July confirmation hearing, she said she accepted the evidence that vaccines do not cause autism.
For parents, nothing about school immunization requirements or pediatric practice changed this week. Vaccination questions belong with a pediatrician, and state requirements are set at the state level.
The Distance Between an Acknowledgment and Restored Capacity
What Schwartz said is verified. What it produces is not.
She named the problems without describing remedies, timelines, or budget authority, and a CDC director does not control appropriations or unilaterally reverse workforce reductions. The commitment to disagree privately means the public will not have a direct signal about where she pushes back, which limits outside accountability to outcomes rather than statements.
Three concrete markers will indicate whether the meeting was more than a first-week message: whether specific stalled programs resume, whether the agency posts hiring for the vacancies behind them, and how the CDC performs on the outbreak work already on its plate.
That plate is full. The agency is working through the largest recorded U.S. cyclosporiasis outbreak, a difficult measles year, and Ebola responses in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda, alongside a rising summer COVID trend. Those responses depend on laboratory capacity and on field epidemiologists deployable to states.
For readers, the operational takeaway is unchanged by leadership. Local and state health departments issue the exposure notices, recall alerts and testing guidance that affect a specific household, and they typically do so before a national picture is complete. That remains the address for anyone tracking a local health concern.
MedicalDaily previously reported on her confirmation and the outbreaks she inherited.
Key Questions Answered
What happened? CDC Director Erica Schwartz held her first agency-wide staff meeting and acknowledged understaffed congressionally funded programs and employee burnout.
Did she announce any fixes? No. She said she would meet with staff to learn more about the affected programs. No timelines or specific remedies were given.
How large are the staffing losses? The CDC has lost more than 3,000 employees through layoffs and resignations, more than a quarter of its workforce.
What did she say about Secretary Kennedy? That she would disagree when warranted but would do so privately rather than publicly.
Is there a change to vaccine recommendations? No. A childhood vaccine safety task force is forming with 90 days to report. Schwartz said it is not meant to replace the existing advisory committee.
Does this affect my family right now? Not directly. School immunization requirements and clinical care are unchanged.
Where should I get local health information? Your state or county health department, which issues local exposure notices and recall alerts first.
