The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee voted 12–11 along party lines on Wednesday to advance President Donald Trump’s nominee, microbiologist Susan Monarez, to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The decision sends the nomination to the full Senate in what would be the chamber’s first confirmation of a CDC director since lawmakers made the post subject to approval in 2023. Monarez, 50, has served as acting director since January, stepping in after the White House withdrew its initial pick, former congressman David Weldon, over concerns he lacked sufficient support. If confirmed, Monarez would become the first CDC chief without a medical degree since 1953. At her confirmation hearing, Monarez endorsed routine vaccinations but avoided direct criticism of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who recently replaced all 17 members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices with a smaller group more skeptical of vaccines. Democrats opposing her nomination cited that shake-up, along with a measles outbreak that has driven U.S. infections to their highest level in more than three decades. The full Senate is expected to take up Monarez’s nomination in the coming days; a simple majority would install her as permanent head of the nation’s chief disease-control agency.