Biden taps former Obama staffer as new CDC director as the agency’s repuation remains in tatters
Biden taps former Obama staffer as new CDC director – with agency’s reputation in tatters after Covid mishandling
President Joe Biden plans to appoint former North Carolina Secretary of Health Dr. Mandy Cohen to head the beleaguered Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Dr. Cohen will take over at the end of the month, when outgoing CDC chief Rochelle Walensky steps down.
The Obama-era health officer is also a trained internal medicine physician who helped run the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) that oversees government-issued health benefits, and helped implement Obamacare.
Most notably, Dr. Cohen served as North Carolina’s Secretary of Health for four years, where she spearheaded the state’s pandemic response, a position that earned her the bona fide public health necessary to lead the sprawling federal health service.
The announcement comes at a frightening time for the CDC and its reputation following a succession of fatal missteps in dealing with the pandemic, from manufacturing inaccurate Covid-19 tests to relaying contradictory messages about safety.
Dr. Mandy Cohen is a Yale-trained physician with a master’s degree in public health from Harvard University. President Biden has yet to make a formal announcement, which is expected to come later this month when current CDC director Rochelle Walensky steps down
Reacting to news of the nomination, Democratic North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper said“Mandy Cohen used a steady hand to help my government guide North Carolina through the pandemic to be one of the states with the lowest per capita deaths and job losses.
“She is a brilliant, talented and time-tested leader who would make a fantastic CDC director.”
Dr. Cohen is a Yale University-trained physician who also holds a master’s degree in public health from Harvard University.
She also has close ties to top Biden officials. She helped found a grassroots organization called Doctors for Obama in 2008 alongside current Surgeon General Vivek Murthy.
The group later broadened its message and renamed itself Doctors for America, with a focus on lobbying for and implementing the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.
She has held various government positions under Democratic leadership, including at CMS, where she worked her way up to chief of staff and later chief operations officer.
While he was North Carolina’s Secretary of Health, Dr. Cohen led the state’s response to Covid.
While she was a strong proponent of masking and social distancing, she was not keen on closing schools.
Instead, she pointed out that children are largely protected from serious infection from Covid and are likely to be safe in the classroom.
She said in 2020, “Schools have played no significant role in the spread of COVID 19.”
Children, especially younger children, are less likely than adults to become infected with COVID-19. And for children who do get infected with COVID-19, they seem to be less likely to pass it on to others.”
In 2022, she became executive vice president of Aledade Inc, a network of independent primary health care practices.
The formal nomination has not yet been made.
And while her nomination does not need to be confirmed by Congress, Dr. Cohen will no doubt be scrutinized by frustrated lawmakers, mostly Republicans.
GOP Representatives Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington and Morgan Griffith of Virginia said on Wednesday: “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has betrayed the trust of the American people through its mismanagement of recent responses, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Restoring public confidence requires a public discussion of the causes of CDC’s missteps from across the public health sector to find the necessary solutions.”