(WASHINGTON) — The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) voted to advance Susan Monarez’s nomination as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Wednesday.
The panel voted along party lines 12-11.
Monarez is the first CDC director nominee to require a Senate confirmation after Congress passed a law requiring it in 2022.
If confirmed, Monarez will be the first CDC director without a medical degree since 1953.
Ahead of the vote, in opening remarks, Ranking Member Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., accused Monarez of allowing Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to spread misinformation about vaccines.
“In my view, we need a CDC director who will defend science, protect public health and repudiate Secretary Kennedy’s dangerous conspiracy theories about effective vaccines that have saved, over the years, millions of lives,” Sanders said.
Monarez was named acting CDC director in January, stepping down after she was nominated for the position in March. It came after President Donald Trump’s first pick, Dr. David Weldon, had his nomination pulled by the White House due to a lack of votes.
Weldon was expected to be grilled on his past comments questioning vaccine safety, such as falsely suggesting vaccines are linked to autism.
Monarez has worked in both the public and private sector — including working in the government under former presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, as well as during Trump’s first term. Her work has included strategies to combat antimicrobial resistance.
During her confirmation hearing last month, Monarez expressed support for vaccines, in contrast with Kennedy, who has expressed some skepticism.
“I think vaccines save lives. I think that we need to continue to support the promotion of utilization of vaccines,” Monarez said.
While Kennedy has previously cited vaccines as a potential reason behind rising rates of autism diagnoses, Monarez said she did not hold the same view.
“I have not seen a causal link between vaccines and autism,” Monarez said when asked by Sanders last month if she agrees with the American Medical Association’s stance “that there is no scientific proven link between vaccines and autism.”
While the CDC director role has been vacant, Kennedy has had final say over some CDC decisions, such as ending recommendations for children and pregnant women to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
Additionally, Kennedy recently removed all 17 sitting members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee of Immunization Practices (ACIP), an independent panel that provides recommendations on vaccines to the CDC, and replaced them with seven hand-selected members — some of whom have expressed vaccine-skeptic views.
Public health professionals previously told ABC News that, traditionally, only a CDC director would be able to reconstitute ACIP.
ABC News’ Cheyenne Haslett and Will McDuffie contributed to this report.
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