Dem senator demands answers on CDC director’s high salary

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) is pressing Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar for answers on the unusually high salary of Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 

In a letter to Azar on Friday, Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Health Committee, voiced concern about Redfield’s salary, which is nearly double what his predecessor at the agency made, and asked for a briefing on the matter. 

“It is difficult to understand why someone with limited public health experience, particularly in a leadership role, is being disproportionately compensated for his work,” Murray wrote in the letter. 

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It’s not the first time Murray has raised questions about Redfield.

Before he took office, Murray wrote to President Trump expressing concerns about Redfield’s lack of public health experience as well as his controversial past as an AIDS researcher.

An Associated Press report this week revealed that Redfield is making far more than his predecessors at the CDC, and nearly twice as much as Brenda Fitzgerald, who helmed the agency before him.

Redfield is being paid $375,000 a year to run the CDC, while Fitzgerald made $197,300 annually.

Redfield is also earning more than Azar, his boss. Azar’s salary is set by law, but Redfield is paid under a program intended to draw in health scientists with rare and critical skills to government work.