NEW YORK — Dr. Mandy Cohen, a former North Carolina health official, will be the new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the White House announced Friday.
Unlike the last two people who served as director of the nation’s top federal public health agency, Cohen has prior experience running a government agency: she was secretary of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services from 2017 to last year.
Prior to that, he held health-related positions with two federal agencies.
“Dr. Cohen is one of the nation’s leading physicians and health leaders with experience leading large and complex organizations and a proven track record of protecting the health and safety of Americans,” said Chairman Joe Biden in a statement.
She succeeds Dr. Rochelle Walensky, 54, who announced last month that she would step down at the end of June. Cohen’s start date has not been announced. Her appointment does not require Senate confirmation.
Walensky, who served as an infectious disease expert at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, led the CDC in 2021, about a year after the pandemic began.
Rochelle Walensky responded to the criticism by saying that the current recommendations are the right ones under the circumstances facing the country and that she amends the guidance based on science and as the virus and its spread change.
Cohen, 44, is currently the executive vice president of Aledade, a healthcare company.
The White House recalled that it was involved in many aspects of the development and implementation of the Affordable Care Act, including the expansion of its coverage.
Walensky highlighted that she is a respected health professional with experience that makes her “perfectly qualified to lead the CDC as it moves forward taking advantage of the lessons learned from COVID-19” and with the objective of “creating an organization prepared to face the challenges of public health of the future”.
Cohen will now take over after a difficult few years at the CDC, whose more than 12,000 employees are charged with protecting Americans from disease outbreaks and other public health threats.
The Atlanta-based federal agency has long been viewed as a world leader in disease control and a trusted source of health information. But polls showed that public confidence eroded, partly as a result of CDC missteps in dealing with COVID-19 and partly because of political attacks and misinformation campaigns.
Walensky initiated a reorganization plan designed to make the agency more agile and improve its communications.
