CDC/HHS/NOMINATIONS: “Georgia’s public health commissioner was named director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday [7-7-17], ending months of speculation over who would fill a critical role leading an agency in charge of public health matters from battling epidemics to vaccination policy.
The Trump administration named Brenda Fitzgerald to succeed Thomas Frieden, who served as director from 2009 until January. Anne Schuchat, a CDC veteran, has been acting director of the Atlanta-based agency since then and will return now to her previous role as principal deputy director, the Department of Health and Human Services said.
Dr. Fitzgerald is an obstetrician-gynecologist who has practiced in Georgia for three decades and has served as commissioner of the Georgia Department of Public Health and state health officer since 2011. She has close relationships with Republican political leaders from the state, including HHS Secretary Tom Price and Newt Gingrich, the former U.S. Speaker of the House, for whom she worked as a health-care policy adviser. She ran unsuccessfully for Congress twice in the early 1990s.”
-Betsy McKay, “Georgia Health Commissioner Named Head of the CDC,” The Wall Street Journal online, July 7, 2017 10:24am