The Trump administration appears to have reached a bridge too far. On Thursday, the White House withdrew its nomination of former Florida congressman and physician Dave Weldon to take charge of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Axios was the first to report on the withdrawal, occurring mere minutes before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) committee was to hold a meeting discussing Weldon’s nomination. Throughout his legislative career, Weldon questioned the safety of vaccines, often by pointing to a debunked link between vaccines and autism. It appears that people within the administration, reportedly including Robert F. Kennedy Jr, did not feel confident about his chances to secure the nomination, given these views.
President Donald Trump announced his nomination of Weldon to become the next director of the CDC late last year. It’s a position that was previously filled through presidential appointment alone, but now requires Senate confirmation thanks to a law passed during the Biden administration.
Weldon was a physician prior to winning a seat in Florida’s House of Representatives as a Republican in 1994. Weldon served in Congress until 2009, during which time he repeatedly cast doubt on vaccine safety. In 2007, for instance, he sponsored a bill aiming to remove any remaining mercury-based ingredients like thimerosal from vaccines used in the U.S. In a statement supporting a separate bill he sponsored that year, Weldon also argued that there were “legitimate questions” about a possible association between thimerosal, vaccines, and increased rates of neurodevelopmental conditions in children, particularly autism.
Health regulators in the U.S. and elsewhere removed thimerosal from many vaccines in the late 1990s, following early research that suggested a possible health risk and a causative connection to autism. However, the vast majority of studies since have failed to find any vaccine-related harm from thimerosal or show that autism can be caused by vaccination (the pivotal study that fueled this speculation was later retracted as well).
This debunking of the vaccine/autism link didn’t prevent Weldon from remaining skeptical about vaccination, however. Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.), a current member and former chair of the Senate HELP committee, stated last month that Weldon continued to espouse these beliefs during a recent meeting she held with him. She strongly opposed his nomination and quickly released a statement following the White House’s withdrawal.
“As we face one of the worst measles outbreaks in years thanks to President Trump, a vaccine skeptic who spent years spreading lies about safe and proven vaccines should never have even been under consideration to lead the foremost agency charged with protecting public health,” Murray said. “RFK Jr. is already doing incalculable damage by spreading lies and disinformation as the top health official in America.”
While RFK Jr. has expressed some tepid support for measles vaccination in his new role as head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, he too has spouted misinformation about vaccine safety for decades. And in his response to the surging measles outbreaks now affecting Texas, New Mexico, and Oklahoma, he has touted scientifically uproven treatments for measles, such as cod liver oil pills.
Surprisingly, however, it appears even Kennedy wasn’t in Weldon’s corner by the end. Axios reported that Kennedy himself felt Weldon wasn’t ready, per an unnamed source. ABC News also reported today that the White House simply didn’t see a likely scenario where Weldon would win enough votes for confirmation.
“While I have little to no confidence in the Trump administration to do so, they should immediately nominate someone for this position who at bare minimum believes in basic science and will help lead CDC’s important work to monitor and prevent deadly outbreaks,” Murray added.
Indeed, this failed nomination may only be a brief reprieve from Kennedy and the Trump White House’s plan to reshape the country’s public health agenda for the worse. The CDC is reportedly planning a large study to reexamine the debunked link between vaccines and autism, and the federal government is stripping away research funding related to many important health issues, including reducing vaccine hesitancy.
