New CDC director commits to ‘building trust’ after ‘some of that trust was lost’
Jenny Goldsberry
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Newly appointed Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Mandy Cohen revealed her mission to regain the public’s trust.
Cohen said her first all-hands meeting as the head of the CDC surrounded a discussion on trust in an interview with NBC News on Thursday. She took over after Rochelle Walensky left the position on June 30.
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Mandy Cohen on NBC News
“We want to protect the health of every American. We have to first make sure that we are building trust with the American people,” Cohen said. “And I know some of that trust was lost in the last few years, but I’m here to refocus the organization on building that trust.”
Meanwhile, 2024 presidential candidates on both sides have criticized the agency. Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) said the public was witness to the “bankruptcy of the public health establishment,” and environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called the CDC a “captive agency.”
“Well, first, it starts with the whole team at CDC. Trust is not just built with me doing something different. It’s all of us being different,” Cohen said.
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President Joe Biden appointed Cohen as director after she served as the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services secretary.
Almost a fifth of respondents in a survey from Health Affairs last year expressed low trust in the CDC. Within that group, 74% claimed political influence on the CDC recommendations and policies as the reason their trust was so low.