The Nation's Top Public Health Official Is Resigning After Reports She Purchased Tobacco Stocks

By: Kayla Pasacreta

Brenda Fitzgerald, photo via Associatd Press (AP)

Brenda Fitzgerald, the director of Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), is stepping down after a report she purchased stocks from a tobacco company, after assuming her position as CDC director. The investments are a clear conflict of interest; considering a main goal for the CDC is to advocate against tobacco use.

In an email Wednesday morning, Fitzgerald announced her resignation, "I want the CDC to do well, and I don’t want the fact that I have two investments that are too difficult to sell to interfere with what the CDC is doing," Her investments in the tobacco company caused her to be recused from committees on the opiod crisis.

Democratic Senator Pat Murray, a member of the Senate Health Committee, expressed Fitzgerald's actions are "yet another example of this Administration’s dysfunction and questionable ethics.”

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