Dr. Mandy Cohen speaks at a news conference on the Emergency Operations Center in Raleigh, North Carolina, Nov. 10, 2021.
Bryan Anderson | AP
President Joe Biden on Friday said he’ll appoint Dr. Mandy Cohen to guide the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Cohen served as the pinnacle of North Carolina’s Department of Health and Human Services throughout the worst days of the Covid-19 pandemic. She previously helped implement Inexpensive Care Act programs as a senior official on the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Cohen is a physician of internal medicine.
“Dr. Cohen is certainly one of the nation’s top physicians and health leaders with experience leading large and complicated organizations, and a proven track-record protecting Americans’ health and safety,” Biden said in an announcement Friday.
CDC directors don’t currently require Senate confirmation, though that can change in January 2025 as a result of recent laws passed by Congress.
Cohen’s appointment comes as federal health leadership within the U.S. is in a period of transition after the Covid-19 public health emergency got here to an end last month.
Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the present CDC director, is stepping down at the tip of this month. She led the CDC through the Covid vaccine rollout, in addition to the delta and omicron waves of Covid. Walensky cited the tip of the Covid emergency in her resignation letter to Biden.
Cohen will take over a CDC that is undergoing a restructuring to deal with criticisms that the agency acted too slowly throughout the pandemic and infrequently gave health guidance that confused the general public.
However the CDC is not the only health agency that is going through changes.
Dr. Ashish Jha left the White House earlier this month after leading the Covid task force for greater than a 12 months.
Biden recently nominated Dr. Monica Bertagnolli to guide the National Institutes of Health. She is currently the pinnacle of the National Cancer Institute. The NIH has been and not using a Senate-confirmed leader since December 2021.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, chair of the Senate health committee, told The Washington Post earlier this week that he would oppose Bertagnolli’s nomination until the president adopts a transparent technique to lower drug prices.