Trump’s CDC Director Nominee Withdrawn Before Hearing

Former Rep. Dave Weldon of Florida has been withdrawn as the Trump Administration’s nominee to be the Director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention the night before his scheduled confirmation hearing.

Via NBC News:

The White House has withdrawn the nomination of former Rep. Dave Weldon, R-Fla., whom President Donald Trump had chosen to serve as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a senior administration official said.

The development came just before Weldon was set to testify at his Senate confirmation hearing at 10 a.m. ET before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

Axios was the first to report the news.

Weldon was told last night that his nomination was being withdrawn, another Trump administration official said. The White House decided to pull Weldon’s nomination when it became clear that he would not have the votes to be favorably reported out of committee because of his past controversial comments about vaccines.

The Senate committee chairman, Bill Cassidy, R-La., had been looking forward to the hearing, but Weldon didn’t have the votes from the panel to get the nomination onto the Senate floor, a source on Capitol Hill close to the chairman said.

Cassidy, a doctor, had raised concerns about the anti-vaccine advocacy of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. before his confirmation as health secretary last month. Weldon has held some vaccine views similar to those of Kennedy.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., met with Weldon last month, and signaled she would oppose his nomination, saying she had little confidence he would stand up to Kennedy. She said Weldon “spent years promoting the false conspiracy that vaccines cause autism, but he has also criticized the CDC’s essential role in vaccine safety research.”

After his nomination was withdrawn Thursday, Murray called Weldon “a vaccine skeptic who spent years spreading lies about safe and proven vaccines” and “should never have even been under consideration to lead the foremost agency charged with protecting public health.”

“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,” she said about the next CDC director nominee.

Weldon served 14 years in the House until 2009, during which time he criticized the CDC and questioned the safety of vaccines. Similar to Kennedy, Weldon has made statements linking vaccines to autism despite research showing no connection exists, and has called on the CDC to further research it.

As a congressman, he questioned the safety of the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella, and he also promoted disproven claims that a mercury-containing preservative, thimerosal, used in children’s vaccines caused autism, even sponsoring a bill called the Mercury-Free Vaccines Act.