Mandy Cohen, seen as next CDC director, would bring political chops to an agency lacking them
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be about to undergo a paradigm shift with the anticipated appointment of former North Carolina health secretary Mandy Cohen as the agency’s next director.
The Atlanta-based CDC has always prided itself at being at a remove from Washington, and the politics that engulf it. With 634 miles separating the U.S. Capitol building from the CDC’s main campus in northeast Atlanta, the agency and its staff have preferred to focus on science. For decades, its directors have almost always been infectious disease experts with CDC experience; some were even graduates of the CDC’s renowned disease detective school, the Epidemic Intelligence Service.
