Key takeaways:

• Members of the Senate HELP Committee postponed a vote on Erica Schwartz’s nomination for CDC director.
• The vote was delayed due to “attendance issues.”

The Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee delayed a scheduled vote Thursday on the nomination of Erica Schwartz, MD, JD, MPH, to be the next CDC director.

The vote was scheduled to occur off the Senate floor but was postponed because of “attendance issues,” according to the office of Republican HELP Committee Chair Bill Cassidy, MD, of Louisiana.

Members of the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee delayed a vote to approve the nomination of Erica Schwartz, MD, JD, MPH, as the next CDC director.

Republicans control the Senate and have a one-member majority on each committee. Politico reported that Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, was absent due to a family emergency, which means at least one non-Republican would have had to vote in favor of Schwartz’s nomination for it to advance to the full Senate. The delay suggests that did not happen.

Ranking Member Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who said he was planning to vote against Schwartz’s nomination, did not question her qualifications for the position but her willingness to prioritize public health over the potentially competing priorities of HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

“I was impressed by Dr. Schwartz’s service to our country and her educational background,” Sanders said in his opening statement. “I will be voting against Dr. Schwartz because we need people in this country who are going to stand up and protect the American people, and I don’t think you’re going to see that right now with Secretary Kennedy in his position.”

After Schwartz’s nomination hearing last week, Paul A. Offit, MD, told Healio he was worried about her responses to questions about vaccine policy.

“I had supported her initially,” Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told Healio. “It was sad to see that she was trying to be political as an MD.”

Cassidy appeared skeptical of Schwartz’s candidacy during the nomination hearing last week, but said speaking with Schwartz and her former colleagues afterward gave him the confidence to approve her nomination.

“After speaking with Dr. Schwartz again after the hearing, reviewing the transcript, and speaking with those who have served with her and know her well, I’m confident that she knows what she is doing and will stand against those who do not,” Cassidy said in his opening remarks Thursday.

Schwartz served as deputy surgeon general during Trump’s first presidential term. She spent 24 years as an occupational medicine physician in the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard and was the U.S. Coast Guard’s chief medical officer and director of health, safety and work life from 2015 to 2019.

Schwartz’s nomination hearing took place alongside Sean Kaufman, MPH, who is the nominee to be Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response. The committee was also scheduled to vote on Kaufman’s nomination Thursday but that vote was rescheduled to July 30.