David Judson Sencer (November 10, 1924 – May 2, 2011) was an American public health official who orchestrated the 1976 immunization program against swine flu.

Between 1966 and 1977, he was the longest serving director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in this capacity, he did nothing to stop the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, in spite of ethical concerns raised internally.

[2] At the forefront of the effort was William H. Foege, who said: "I never asked [Sencer] for anything that he didn't deliver...He said you couldn’t protect U.S. citizens from smallpox without getting rid of it in the world, and that was a new approach.

Precipitated both by his apprehensions of a recurrence of the 1918–1919 flu plague and by President Gerald Ford's incitement, the decision was later criticized as "rash and wasteful".

"[1] In 2006, Sencer wrote a report on the swine flu program: "When lives are at stake, it is better to err on the side of overreaction than underreaction...

Sencer sent 20 epidemiologists there to investigate, and months later they attributed the disease to a type of bacteria in the air-conditioning system in the hotel where the conference was held.

Although some appreciated his arrangement of weekly information-swapping sessions between doctors and public health officials, others, particularly those in the gay community, reprehended him for "dragging his feet".

AIDS activist Larry Kramer contended, "He and his reign accounted for one of the most disastrous experiences of public health anywhere in the world... What did he do?

He neglected to disseminate information regarding sexual risk reduction for gay and bisexual men, and initially did not publicize that "casual contact" did not spread AIDS.

[1] Sencer also supported "free clean needles for addicts and fought to keep gay bathhouses open, believing they were an ideal place to teach safe sex".