Richard H. Hughes, IV, Member of the Firm in the Health Care & Life Sciences practice, in the firm’s Washington, DC, office, was quoted in STAT News, in “Does the CDC Have an Acting Director?” by Helen Branswell.
Following is an excerpt:
Earlier this week, Lisa Blunt Rochester asked a seemingly simple question of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. during his testimony to the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee: “Who is the acting CDC director?”
Kennedy, the secretary of Health and Human Services, offered the name “Matt Buzzelli,” who he described as “a public health expert.”
Despite Kennedy’s assurance to the junior Democratic senator from Delaware, there remain questions about whether the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention actually does have an acting director at this time.
Its website does not list one. CDC staff have not been informed Buzzelli is the agency’s acting director. And since Kennedy’s appearance before the committee on Wednesday, the HHS communications office has repeatedly dodged questions about whether or when Buzzelli — a former Justice Department trial lawyer whose biography on the CDC site lists no public health experience — was named acting director.
On the webpage outlining the CDC’s leadership, Matthew Buzzelli is listed fourth, as the agency’s chief of staff. At the top of the page is Debra Houry, deputy director for program and science and the agency’s chief medical officer. Houry was No. 2 at the CDC under the previous director, Mandy Cohen, and served very briefly as acting director before the new administration named Susan Monarez to the role.
Monarez, a career civil servant with a biosecurity background, was tapped for the director job in March, when President Trump withdrew the nomination of former Florida congressman Dave Weldon hours before his confirmation hearing. A nominee cannot serve as an acting director of the agency or department he or she has been named to lead.
When asked if the agency had an acting director, and who it was, Andrew Nixon, HHS director of communications, responded indirectly.
“Secretary Kennedy was correct. Susan Monarez was CDC’s acting director but is now President Trump’s nominee for director and is working through Senate confirmation. CDC Chief of Staff Matt Buzzelli is running the agency,” Nixon told STAT via email.
When STAT pressed for confirmation that Buzzelli has been formally named acting director, Nixon again sidestepped the question.
“The CDC Chief of Staff has been carrying out some of the duties of the CDC Director as the Senior Official, as necessary, and is surrounded by highly qualified medical professionals and advisors to help fulfill these duties as appropriate,” Nixon said.
A staff member in Blunt Rochester’s office said the senator is pursuing the question of who is running the CDC.
“The Senator is seeking more clarity on the response, since this was the first time the information has been made public. She’s working on next steps,” said the individual, who spoke on background.
It is not entirely clear whether Buzzelli meets the criteria to serve as acting director, said Dorit Reiss, a law professor at UC Law San Francisco.
Under the Vacancies Act, the default person to serve as an acting director would be the “first assistant” — though the act does not spell out who, precisely, that is. It also stipulates that the acting role could be filled by another government employee who has been Senate-confirmed, or by an officer or employee from the same agency who has worked at it for at least 90 days in the year before the vacancy occurred, and who earns at least a GS-15 salary. (In 2024, that salary category ranged from roughly $123,000 to $160,000.)
Buzzelli appears to have been appointed CDC chief of staff around mid-February. The webpage featuring his photo and bio was posted on Feb. 24, a month before Monarez’s nomination created the acting director vacancy. He did not work at the CDC previously. Though STAT has not been able yet to confirm Buzzelli’s start date, if he joined the CDC in mid-February he would not have accrued 90 days with the agency prior to the vacancy.
Richard Hughes, a lawyer who follows vaccine policy closely, was less sure about whether Buzzelli was ineligible to serve as acting director, saying in his reading of the statute there appears to be wiggle room.
“There’s a lot of leniency, I think, in who you could consider the acting director and the circumstances under which you could designate him an acting director,” said Hughes, who is with the firm Epstein Becker Green.
“If it were challenged, I would tend to think that the outcome would favor [Kennedy’s] ability to tap Buzzelli as the acting director.”
It is not clear when the CDC will have a permanent director. The HELP committee has not yet scheduled a confirmation hearing for Monarez. Asked when a hearing date would be set for her, a spokesman told STAT that a nominee must file all required paperwork and undergo an Office of Government Ethics review before a committee hearing can be scheduled.
