'Queen of Mandating Vaccines': Trump CDC nominee rankles vaccine skeptics, heartens elites

As he gears up for bruising midterm elections, President Trump is baffling supporters by bringing back a member of his original public health apparatus, whose nine-month COVID-19 vaccine development initiative paved the way for the Biden administration's heavy-handed COVID mandates and jawboning of Big Tech to clamp down on true claims.

Former Deputy Surgeon General Erica Schwartz's nomination for Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director is part of a broader revanchism of vaccine orthodoxy against the vaccine heterodoxy of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

He fired Trump's first Senate-confirmed CDC director, Susan Monarez, less than a month into her tenure last summer for allegedly admitting she was "untrustworthy." Monarez struggled to give straight answers on the harm-benefit profile of COVID vaccines, why every child on day one needs the full U.S. vaccine schedule and even her lawyers at a subsequent Senate hearing.

Schwartz is "normal and not an anti-vaccine lunatic," infectious diseases researcher Neil Stone, a superfan of Trump's Operation Warp Speed who calls himself "officially the 1st person to use [the] word Covid," wrote of Schwartz on X. "Meaning she won't last long under RFK Jr."

Trump's first surgeon general, Jerome Adams, who alternately told the public to "STOP BUYING MASKS" because they don't stop the spread, then to wear masks "as a social cue," said he's "cautiously optimistic" about the nomination.

He "personally selected" Schwartz as his deputy and called her a "battle-tested leader with decades of distinguished public service. [...] If allowed to follow the science without political interference, she'll excel."

She would "likely be a disaster," said vaccine injury lawyer Aaron Siri, recently touted by Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Chair Ron Johnson, R-Wis., for Siri's public records litigation to obtain early CDC surveys on COVID vaccine side effects. "This agency does not need another cheerleader for industry; it needs a regulator over industry."

Siri called Schwartz "The Queen of Mandating Vaccines" in a heavily sourced essay. 

"Her prior promotion, let alone mandates, of nearly a dozen different vaccines leave little hope she will objectively oversee CDC’s vaccine program," which ballooned from three to 29 jabs, "including in utero, by an infant’s first birthday" since 1986, he wrote.

"President Trump [again] declares war on MAHA" after issuing an executive order affecting a common weedkiller linked to cancer, COVID vaccine whistleblower lawyer Tom Renz wrote on X, using brackets in the original.

Schwartz has a "long history of being a diehard pro-vax establishment figure in health" and her nomination makes clear, "with the exception of RFK, this admin[i]stration is absolutely against making America healthy again and would rather have chronically ill, autistic children," he said.

Schwartz did not respond to a Just the News query through medical imaging provider Butterfly Network, where she's a board director, for her response to allegations that her record suggests she'll undermine Kennedy and be a short-lived director like Monarez.

Trump emphasizes credentials, omits nominee's mandate history

Trump effusively praised his nominee in a post that Kennedy less enthusiastically shared.

The "incredibly talented" Schwartz is a "STAR!" the exclamation-prone president wrote, noting her Ivy League credentials and service in the U.S. military, "the Greatest and Most Powerful Force in the World." She was chief medical officer for the Coast Guard and rear admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service.

He also announced new CDC appointments not requiring confirmation and Kennedy's new senior counselor, Sara Brenner, who was Food and Drug Administration principal deputy commissioner and is known for admitting she refused the COVID vaccination while pregnant even as the FDA pushed the shots on pregnant women.

Trump's nominee and appointments "have the knowledge, experience and TOP degrees to restore the GOLD STANDARD OF SCIENCE" at the CDC, in contrast to the "absolute disaster focused on 'mandates'" it became under the Biden administration, the president wrote.

Kennedy thanked Trump for nominating Schwartz and congratulated his new colleagues. 

"I look forward to working together to restore trust, accountability, and scientific integrity" at the agency "so we can return it to its core mission and Make America Healthy Again."

He was more complimentary of the additions collectively at a House Appropriations Committee hearing Thursday before the president announced them, The Hill reported. 

"I think this new team is really going to be able to revolutionize CDC and get it back on track and get it doing the job that it does better than any other health agency in the world,” he said.

CNN reported that "Kennedy and his team had recommended Schwartz to the president along with a slate of other appointees to shore up CDC leadership," all of whom Trump appointed.

Schwartz's leadership during the first year of COVID "was essential to the early response, and she became a go-to resource to communicate with state leaders on testing, surveillance, and other emergency measures," former American Action Forum Director of healthcare policy Michael Baker, who collaborated with Schwartz then, told CNN.

HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon twice declined to respond specifically when asked how Schwartz aligns with Kennedy's agenda given her record, especially supporting and herself implementing vaccine mandates.

"Dr. Schwartz is a physician, public health expert, and veteran who is eminently qualified to lead the CDC in its mission of protecting America from infectious disease threats," Nixon wrote in an email.

UCMJ prosecution 'for failure to obey a lawful order'

Where Schwartz gets her income apart from board positions and stock holdings isn't clear. Just the News couldn't find a profile for her on LinkedIn or a recent biography.

United Healthcare identified her as its president of insurance solutions in a sponsored article for STAT News in February 2022, as did a Securities and Exchange Commission filing a month later by Aveanna Healthcare, which said Schwartz is a member of its board. MarketScreener values her holdings in Aveanna and Butterfly Network at $4 million.

UHC, whose former CEO Brian Thompson was allegedly gunned down by Luigi Mangione, didn't respond to a query on whether Schwartz is still with the company.

Her nomination led observers to scour her record, whose paucity frustrated medical freedom activist and canceled doctor Mary Talley Bowden. 

"She checks all the boxes and hasn’t left a paper trail," wrote Bowden, who last fall mocked researcher Stone for refusing to debate her on health influencer Jillian Michael's podcast.

"Schwartz led nationwide Covid-19 vaccine deployment and her long track record of directly issuing rights-crushing civilian and military vaccine mandates, including mandating injection of smallpox, anthrax, and flu vaccines into U.S. Forces, and discipling [sic] those that refused, reflects she lacks the basic ethics and morals to lead the CDC," Siri wrote on X.

He posted Schwartz-signed February 2019 anthrax and smallpox vaccine mandate memos and a 2015 flu vaccine mandate memo, all for the Coast Guard, but not any records showing she disciplined members who refused.

"Absent an exemption," objectors may be prosecuted under the Uniform Code of Military Justice "for failure to obey a lawful order or for being derelict in the performance of their duties," according to the anthrax and smallpox memos, which lay out conditions for medical but not religious exemptions. The flu memo mentions no consequences for refusal.

"As a reminder, Trump and his team locked us down, pushed masks, told our children it was unsafe to see their grandparents, made up social distancing, and was behind Operation Warp Speed – the biggest public health failure in history," Renz wrote. "He then gave [Anthony] Fauci a Presidential Commendation for doing it all. Schwartz was a part of it."