President Biden on Friday announced he selected Mandy Cohen to serve as the next director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention after Rochelle Walensky leaves the post at the end of the month.
“Dr. Cohen is one of the nation’s top physicians and health leaders with experience leading large and complex organizations, and a proven track-record protecting Americans’ health and safety,” Biden said in a statement.
Cohen, an internal medicine physician, served five years as secretary of North Carolina’s Department of Health and Human Services, where Biden said she “developed innovative and nationally recognized programs that improved the health and lives of families across the state,” which won “bipartisan praise.” Currently, she works in the private sector as executive VP at Aledade and CEO of Aledade Care Solution.
Many Republicans expressed their opposition to Cohen in a June 13 letter to Biden.
"Dr. Cohen is unfit for the position," 22 House Republicans and six GOP senators wrote. "Throughout her career, Dr. Cohen has politicized science, disregarded civil liberties, and spread misinformation about the efficacy and necessity of COVID vaccinations and the necessity of masks..."
They continued: "She also has a history of engaging in partisan left-wing politics. As Secretary of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, Dr. Cohen was a proponent of unnecessary, unscientific COVID restrictions on school children, stating in July 2021 that ‘Schools with students in K-8th grade should require all children and staff to wear masks indoors, regardless of vaccination status. Schools with students in 9th-12th grades should ensure that anyone who isn’t fully vaccinated, including students, wear a mask indoors.’"
Ultimately, given her positions during the pandemic and affiliation with the Democratic Party, the lawmakers argue it will be hard for the American people to trust her "as a nonpartisan actor who makes objective decisions rooted in scientific data, and not in political expediency."
Cohen will start immediately after Walenksy’s June 30 departure, as the CDC director does not become a Senate confirmed position until January 2025.