The New Nominee For CDC Director and More Public Health News

**Brian Lehrer** (0:10)
It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. You know, while the Todd Blanch confirmation hearing for attorney general got a lot of attention last week, the one for Centers for Disease Control director got mostly ignored, but nominee Dr. Erica Schwartz surprised many senators, and not in a good way for someone whose selection was being viewed in some public health circles as surprisingly normal. We'll discuss the implications for her nomination and for your health now, where the doctor who writes about public health will also touch on why defense secretary or war secretary, as he calls himself, Pete Hegseth, wants to mandate the troops over age 30 get tested for their testosterone levels. Here's Secretary Hegseth on that.

**Pete Hegseth** (0:54)
I'm authorizing a new screening program for testosterone deficiency for our service members, ensuring you have the right testosterone levels to operate at your absolute best.

**Brian Lehrer** (1:06)
Joining me now on both of these things is Dr. Jeremy Faust, emergency medicine physician, public health researcher, and author of the sub-stack newsletter Inside Medicine. Dr. Faust, I've been reading you for a while. It's good to get to talk to you. Welcome to WNYC.

**Jeremy Faust** (1:21)
Thanks for having me.

**Brian Lehrer** (1:22)
And listeners, do you take testosterone supplements? It's a thing in the culture, not just coming out of Pete Hegseth's mouth for the military. Do you have questions about Hegseth's testosterone testing program for US service members or the nomination of Dr. Erica Schwartz to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention? Questions for Dr. Jeremy Faust, 212-433. WNYC, as always, call or text, 212-433-969.
And Dr. Faust will come back to testosterone, which I know you have opinions about. But let's start with Erica Schwartz, the nominee for Centers for Disease Control director. Here's a short clip of Democratic Senator Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire and Schwartz at her confirmation hearing.

**Maggie Hassan** (2:09)
Will you follow the law or follow the president's instruction, Dr. Schwartz?

**Erica Schwartz** (2:13)
The president would never ask me to not follow the law, but I will always follow the law.

**Maggie Hassan** (2:18)
There are multiple examples of the president actively instructing people to break the law over and over again.

**Bernie Sanders** (2:24)
So I hope you will update yourself on that.

**Erica Schwartz** (2:26)
The one thing that I can tell you is how I lead and how I live. And I have lived and I have led by my integrity. I have spent over 25 years in the uniform services leading by integrity.
That is what I can commit to you and to the committee.

**Brian Lehrer** (2:44)
So some clips of Senator Hassan and Dr. Schwartz as edited by The Root. Dr. Faust, your newsletter on the hearing was called, She Blew It. And you're right that you went from supporting her nomination to opposing it. Why did you first support this nomination?

**Jeremy Faust** (2:59)
I supported this nomination because it was a pleasant surprise. This was something that really cut across partisan divides. People looked at this nomination, Dr. Erica Schwartz, and on paper, she had the credentials. And importantly, she also had the receipts from having done the work well in service.
And she had the backing of people who knew her, who have respect, like Dr. Jerome Adams, who was the Surgeon General under President Trump in the first term. And Dr. Adams really did maintain his reputation despite sometimes being in difficult situations. So you put all of that together.
And many of us felt that Dr. Schwartz's nomination was a very welcome development. And part of a project that was going on at HHS and the White House this spring, where they wanted to get HHS out of the headlines in some negative press. There was literally a quote that was in the media from HHS spokespeople saying that they just want people who weren't crazy. And so, and so Dr. Schwartz clearly met that threshold and then some. And then this hearing happened. And after a few minutes, it just began to unravel.

**Brian Lehrer** (4:04)
Was that exchange with Senator Hassan a good example?

**Jeremy Faust** (4:07)
It was, but it wasn't the only one.
Again, she started with a very nice opening statement. And everything seemed like it was proceeding normally. Senator Bill Cassidy, who is the chair of the committee, who is also a physician, is really the key here. And he just, he seemed very relaxed at first. And this was a little bit of a, not a coronation, but it wasn't anticipated to be heated. And you could see in particular, Senator Cassidy, but also Senator Sanders and others losing it, just absolutely losing their minds because this person that they had read about and who they'd met behind closed doors did not show up. A different person showed up to that hearing.