Dr. David Weldon’s hearing was to take place today before the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. However, a White House official last night told Weldon “they didn’t have the votes to confirm” his nomination, according to The New York Times.
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The U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions this morning canceled a scheduled hearing on the nomination of Dr. David Weldon, President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Axios was the first to break the news, stating that Weldon’s “views questioning certain vaccines have garnered attention since he was nominated months ago and were sure to play a prominent role in questioning.”
The New York Times reached Weldon by phone. The former Florida congressman said he learned of the decision last night when a White House official told him that “they didn’t have the votes to confirm” his nomination.
In a statement to media, posted on X, Weldon said, “The concern of many people is that Big Pharma was behind this, which is probably true. They are probably the most powerful lobbying organization in Washington DC giving millions of dollars to politicians on both sides of the aisle.”
Meanwhile, the Senate Health committee today voted 14-9 to endorse Dr. Marty Makary to lead the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and 12-11 to endorse Dr. Jay Bhattacharya to lead the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Both Makary and Bhattacharya “largely breezed through” their Senate confirmation hearings and are now set to be confirmed by a full Senate vote, according to STAT News.
Given the Republican control of the Senate, it is expected that Makary and Bhattacharya will be confirmed.
Weldon nomination pulled amid Texas measles outbreak, CDC plan to study vaccines
Weldon, 71, is a practicing internal medicine doctor and Army veteran. He represented Florida in Congress from 1995 to 2009.
The CDC has a $9 billion budget and staff of around 13,000, according to NBC.
According to the Times, Weldon said he had been excited about the opportunity to help restore the public’s confidence in the CDC and serve his country again.
Weldon had also been looking forward to working on the MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) agenda to address the proliferation of chronic diseases among U.S. Americans, particularly children.
In the days leading up to Weldon’s planned hearing, numerous media outlets ran a slew of articles highlighting Weldon’s history of questioning vaccine safety.
Reuters on March 7 broke the news that the CDC was planning a study on the possible link between vaccines and autism. Some senators “have expressed concerns over Weldon’s views on vaccines,” Reuters said.
The Washington Post confirmed that the CDC planned to “leave no stone unturned in its mission to figure out” why autism rates are soaring, including using the agency’s Vaccine Safety Datalink database to study any possible links between vaccines and autism.
The last-minute plan to pull Weldon’s nomination came against the backdrop of news reports about the CDC’s planned study and the West Texas measles outbreak. On March 10, Forbes reported, “Vaccine Skeptic Dave Weldon Is Up To Lead CDC As Measles And Flu Rage.”
According to Forbes, Weldon was a friend of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who “holds similar and, in some cases, seemingly more extreme views on some health matters.”
On March 12, STAT News reported, under the headline, “How CDC nominee Dave Weldon’s support for anti-vaccine theories runs long and deep” that Weldon in 2004 asked the U.S. House Appropriations Committee chair to fund an autism research center that would be led by Dr. Andrew Wakefield.
Wakefield was the first author of the 1998 study, published and later retracted in The Lancet, that linked the MMR vaccine to autism in certain children.
According to STAT News, Weldon requested $1.9 million in the 2005 budget for the center to study “the biological origins” of childhood developmental disorders, including autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, Congress chose not to fund it.
In 2007, Weldon introduced a bill “to improve vaccine safety research” that would have transferred the responsibility of tracking vaccine safety from the CDC to an independent agency within HHS.
The bill stipulated that the independent agency would:
- Conduct or support safety research and monitor licensed vaccines.
- Develop a vaccine safety research agenda.
- Evaluate means to promote compliance with federal adverse reaction reporting requirements.
- Provide a clearinghouse for vaccine studies.
- Ensure that functions relating to vaccine monitoring or research on adverse reactions are not carried out by anyone with a conflict of interest.
- Oversee the Vaccine Safety Datalink Project.
- Resolve U.S. conflicts of interest related to international agreements, partnerships, and activities.
However, the bill never made it to the House floor for a vote.
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