New CDC chief makes double his predecessor’s salary: report

The new head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is being paid far more than past directors, and more than twice what his predecessor was.

According to an Associated Press report, Robert Redfield Jr. is being paid $375,000 a year to run the CDC. Redfield’s predecessor Brenda Fitzgerald made $197,300 annually.

Fitzgerald held the position for only six months, and resigned as CDC director in late January following reports that she purchased stock in tobacco companies.

Redfield’s salary also eclipses his boss’s, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar’s, earnings. Azar’s salary is set by law, but Redfield is being paid under a program called Title 42 — a program that was created to draw in health scientists with rare and critical skills to government work.

{mosads} According to HHS, Title 42 enables the agency to quickly fill knowledge gaps so medical research can progress and to respond to medical emergencies.

Fitzgerald was not paid under that program, the AP reported. Nor was her predecessor, Tom Frieden, whose compensation in 2016 was $219,700.

The Title 42 program has come under fire in the past. House Republicans in 2012 said the Obama administration’s HHS was overusing the program, costing taxpayers money.

Redfield took a pay cut from his previous job as a professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. He made about $757,000 between January 2017 and March 2018, in addition to a $70,000 bonus, The Wall Street Journal reported.