As her tenure as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention winds down, Mandy Cohen is in persuasion mode — simultaneously trying to convince critics of the CDC in the incoming administration that the agency has re-focused since its pandemic-era missteps, and calm nervous staff about what is to come.
The public health agency, which has long served as a model for peer institutions around the globe, is in the crosshairs of both the Republican-led Congress and the people set to be nominated to key health positions in the second Trump administration.