The White House on Thursday withdrew the nomination of former Florida congressman Dr. David Weldon to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) mere hours before Weldon was slated to appear before the Senate for a confirmation hearing.
Reports indicate that Weldon was pulled just before the now-canceled hearing because he didn’t have the votes to be confirmed. A Wall Street Journal report noted that Weldon was unaware of the withdrawal until 9 a.m. Thursday morning, when a Journal reporter contacted him.
Weldon, a physician who served in Congress from 1995 to 2009, has routinely expressed skepticism about the safety of vaccinations, not unlike Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
In 2007, Weldon proposed a bill that would have transferred vaccine safety oversight from the CDC to an independent agency within HHS. He also suggested that there could be a link between vaccinations and the rise in autism, which is reportedly set to be studied by the CDC under RFK.
The withdrawal comes amid the ongoing measles outbreak in Texas, which has put a spotlight on vaccines under Kennedy’s leadership and possibly added scrutiny to Weldon’s confirmation chances. The former congressman reportedly softened his take on vaccine safety during private conversations with senators, though he still apparently couldn’t muster up enough support.
There have been a total of 223 confirmed cases of measles in Texas since late January. Twenty-nine people have been hospitalized, with one death of a school-aged child. Most infections have impacted children in the Mennonite population.
Kennedy has said the outbreak must elicit a “call to action” from all to affirm our “commitment to public health.” He’s reportedly sent thousands of doses of the Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR) vaccine to Texas while educating parents on treatments post-infection and nutrition.
“What we’re trying to do is really to restore faith in government, and to make sure that we are there to help them with their needs and not particularly to dictate what they ought to be doing,” RFK said on Fox News.
Despite the extra attention on vaccines, Kennedy has already made several changes. For example, he’s indicated that he’ll effectively review the childhood vaccination schedule by investigating vaccines — as well as pesticides, food additives, microplastics, and antidepressants — to see if they have contributed to a rise in chronic illness.
He’s also halted the CDC’s “Wild to Mild” campaign promoting the flu vaccine and has indicated that he wants advertisements going forward to promote the idea of “informed consent” in vaccine decision-making, which would include giving people information about the adverse events associated with vaccines.
Additionally, citing conflicts of interest, Kennedy is preparing to remove several members of the external committee that advises the FDA and CDC on vaccine approvals and other key public health decisions. Recommendations from that committee, known as ACIP, are almost always followed by HHS and could further impact the childhood vaccination schedule. RFK has also postponed ACIP’s first panel to “accommodate public comment in advance of the meeting.”
Just this past week, it was announced that the National Institutes of Health will stop spending money to find out why Americans are hesitant to take vaccines. The NIH, which is part of HHS, is terminating or scaling back more than 40 related grants and has said that such spending no longer aligns with NIH priorities.
