1. United States
2. Ohio
3. Letter

I am writing to urge Congress to exercise immediate oversight over the leadership and operational focus of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The CDC's founding statutory mandate is clear: protect American communities from dangerous, expanding disease threats. Yet recent agency leadership priorities are diverting critical staff, funding, and focus away from active public health emergencies to pursue politicized data surveillance. At her July 15 Senate confirmation hearing, CDC Director nominee Dr. Erica Schwartz testified that "abortion surveillance is absolutely a critical component of what the CDC is currently doing," pledging to ensure states are not "hiding abortions" in emergency service case definitions. This came as the country faces its largest measles outbreak in 35 years and a growing, multi-state Cyclospora outbreak that has sickened thousands — yet when asked about the CDC's decision to make Cyclospora tracking optional rather than mandatory, Schwartz responded, "This is the first I've heard of that." She gave a similarly unfamiliar answer regarding the elimination of nearly $500 million in mRNA vaccine development contracts. Following workforce reductions that have cut nearly 3,000 employees — roughly a quarter of the agency's total staff, including a 70% reduction to the team tracking parasitic diseases — the CDC cannot afford to misallocate remaining resources. Every dollar and work-hour spent auditing routine state administrative data is a resource pulled directly from: - Containing active, spreading infectious disease outbreaks across state lines. - Protecting the safety of the domestic food and agricultural supply. - Reducing alarming maternal mortality rates in underserved states and demographics. - Maintaining robust laboratory testing, vaccine literacy, and rapid emergency response teams. Public health surveillance must remain anchored in transparent, objective epidemiology — not political agendas that strain federal-state relations and waste taxpayer dollars. I ask you to take five concrete actions: 1. COSPONSOR AND PASS H.R. 9981 (FOODBORNE ILLNESS RAPID RESPONSE ACT): Bar staffing cuts at CDC foodborne surveillance divisions during outbreaks, restore mandatory tracking for Cyclospora, and reinstate monitoring for all recently downgraded pathogens. 2. RESTORE EVIDENCE-BASED VACCINE GUIDANCE: Demand CDC leadership publicly advocate for vaccine literacy, counter debunked claims regarding vaccine safety with established scientific consensus, and fund state immunization programs as measles cases rise. 3. REFOCUS REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH ON MATERNAL MORTALITY: Direct CDC to focus its maternal and reproductive health allocations on maternal mortality review committees (MMRCs) and evidence-based interventions to reduce pregnancy-related deaths, rather than expanding administrative surveillance on state emergency care definitions. 4. PASS THE FEDERAL AND STATE FOOD SAFETY INFORMATION SHARING ACT: Grant FDA authority to share full, unredacted inspection and outbreak data with state and local health inspectors. 5. REVERSE FOODNET AND PARASITIC DISEASE CUTS: Restore full funding and staffing to FoodNet and the Division of Parasitic Diseases to rebuild active outbreak response capacity. I urge you to use your committee oversight and appropriations authority to demand that CDC leadership refocus strictly on its core mission: containing infectious diseases, preventing bio-threats, and safeguarding public health.