The White House may pick a former governor, a state health director or a cardiologist who has been critical of repeated coronavirus boosters to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Former Kentucky governor Ernie Fletcher, Mississippi health director Daniel Edney and Johns Hopkins cardiologist Joseph Marine are being considered to lead the nation’s preeminent public health agency, according to several administration officials and others familiar with the discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
Administration officials say their search for a CDC director is not over and President Donald Trump’s eventual pick may ultimately be a different choice.
Fletcher, Edney and Marine — who have significantly different expertise and political backers — reflect the complicated dynamics administration officials are navigating as they seek a leader for the $9 billion agency facing a cascade of challenges and a prolonged leadership vacuum. Trump officials are wary of further unnerving voters alarmed by the way Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the founder of a prominent anti-vaccine group, has upended the childhood immunization schedule and reshaped vaccine policy. But they also do not want to alienate Kennedy’s core Make America Healthy Again supporters, many of whom are deeply critical of the CDC but carry political influence.
The White House is facing a rapidly approaching deadline to nominate someone to helm the agency. Jay Bhattacharya, the director of the National Institutes of Health, is overseeing the CDC as acting director. But that appointment expires Thursday unless the White House submits a nominee, raising the possibility that Trump officials could tap another interim leader as they continue to search for a full-time director for the agency tasked with preventing diseases and detecting and responding to domestic and international health threats.
Bloomberg first reported that Fletcher and Marine were under consideration. Fletcher and Marine did not respond to requests for comment. Edney declined to comment. About half a dozen individuals are being seriously considered, according to two people familiar with the discussions.
“Any reporting about Administration appointments unless officially announced by the White House is pointless speculation,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement.
In recent months, Trump administration officials have been downplaying their overhauls of federal vaccine policy and instead leaning into their work on food and drug pricing ahead of November’s midterm elections. Some Republicans, including Trump’s chief pollster, have called eliminating long-standing recommendations for certain vaccines “politically risky.”
A recent poll from the University of Pennsylvania found that Americans express greater confidence in federal career scientists and independent medical groups than in the political leaders running U.S. health agencies, with people saying they’re more likely to accept vaccine recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics than from the CDC.
The White House last month helped install Chris Klomp as the operational leader of the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC, in an effort to tamp down controversies at the health agencies. Klomp, a health care businessman before entering government, is playing a key role in helping select the new CDC leader, and he has told colleagues he wants someone with leadership expertise and who will be respected by scientists at the agency and the public, according to three people familiar with the discussions.
In an interview with STAT last week, Klomp said there are “a couple of candidates that I believe have the character and attributes, the moral character and attributes to be a great leader, who have demonstrated that repeatedly and who have the experience, and clinical expertise necessary to do a nice job in that role.”
One person familiar with the discussions said the White House “wants things to calm down at the CDC,” and is leaning toward someone with traditional public health experience but who can also navigate Kennedy’s vaccine views and the expectations of his allies.
The White House in 2024 had selected Dave Weldon, a Kennedy ally and former Florida congressman who had questioned vaccine safety, to lead the CDC before abruptly pulling his nomination last year amid warnings from GOP senators that he would not be confirmed. Trump officials then selected Susan Monarez, a scientist who was already serving as acting CDC director. But she was dismissed less than a month after her confirmation, following clashes with Kennedy over his plans to change vaccine policy.
“It’s going to be extremely difficult to find someone who is sufficiently aligned with RFK, yet also has the credentials and credibility to get confirmed, and then successfully lead the staff at the CDC,” said Jerome Adams, who served as surgeon general during the first Trump administration.
Leadership at the CDC is critical, Adams said, “especially given that vaccine-related outbreaks are only going to get worse, which is going to put more emphasis on CDC’s guidance and response.” He was referring to the sharp increase in measles cases this year and declining vaccination rates.
Fletcher was Kentucky’s governor from 2003 to 2007, and the Republican’s victory in the Bluegrass State ended 32 years of Democratic control. He is co-founder and chief medical officer of the Fletcher Group, a nonprofit focused on addiction recovery housing and rural health initiatives, according to the group’s website.
Edney has been Mississippi’s state health officer since August 2022, after previously holding roles as deputy state health officer and chief medical officer at the state health department. Under his tenure, Mississippi moved from last in overall health to 48th, according to a widely cited health ranking. Before joining the health department, he spent more than 30 years in private medical practice. Edney is president-elect of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.
Marine is a cardiologist at Johns Hopkins Hospital focused on abnormal heart rhythms. He has expressed skepticism about Americans repeatedly getting updated coronavirus shots, harshly criticized vaccine mandates during the pandemic, and has often tweeted support of Trump health officials at the Food and Drug Administration and National Institutes of Health. Some MAHA supporters have publicly cheered his candidacy.
Whoever leads the CDC will need the approval of Kennedy, who has upended long-standing norms that once insulated the CDC’s scientific work from political pressure. He fired the agency’s influential vaccine advisory panel and replaced it with handpicked appointees, some of whom have strongly criticized vaccines. He bypassed the traditional vaccine recommendation process to unilaterally overhaul the childhood vaccine schedule, dropping several routinely recommended vaccines, including for flu, rotavirus, and meningococcal disease.
On Monday, a federal judge put a temporary hold on the changes to the vaccine schedule, Kennedy’s reconstitution of the advisory panel and all decisions made by that committee. The judge said Kennedy likely violated federal procedures, a decision that thrust the future of the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee into uncertain, and unprecedented, territory.
Starting last year, selection of the CDC director requires Senate approval, no longer leaving that power to the president alone. But the change has not brought stability to the agency, which has only had a Senate-confirmed director for less than a month since Trump was sworn into office.
Unease among career staff and public health officials who depend on CDC guidance has unfolded amid a record-breaking measles outbreak. Cases of the highly contagious, vaccine preventable disease are on pace to surpass last year’s figures, with 1,487 cases reported as of March 19, roughly two-thirds of last year’s total in less than three months.
An outbreak in Utah that began last summer has ballooned into one of the nation’s largest, stretching into its ninth month. The state is reporting a total of more than 400 cases, and some hospitals in southern Utah are reporting the highest measles caseloadin decades.
Deep cuts to the agency, leadership disruptions and tensions over what’s driving the policy agenda have shaken confidence in CDC’s scientific independence and intensified concerns that politics is encroaching on decisions once driven by data and consensus, according to former CDC leaders and other public health and medical experts.
Inside the CDC, morale has eroded. Hundreds of employees have left through buyouts, retirements and layoffs, thinning the agency’s scientific ranks. Current and former staff describe a workforce shaken by rapid leadership turnover, shifting policy directives and uncertainty about the agency’s future.
Lauren Weber contributed to this report.
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