The Trump administration withdrew its nomination to lead the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Tuesday, the day he was due to face a confirmation hearing.
Axios broke the news that Dave Weldon, a 71-year-old doctor and former Republican Florida congressman, would not face a hearing as planned.
Weldon told the New York Times: “It is a shock, but, you know, in some ways, it’s relief. Government jobs demand a lot of you, and if God doesn’t want me in it, I’m fine with that.”
Weldon’s anti-vaccine views have been widely scrutinized. Axios cited a source as saying the new US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, himself an anti-vaccine campaigner and a hugely controversial pick, said “Weldon wasn’t ready”.
The Times said Weldon and Kennedy were longtime friends. Weldon told the paper Kennedy was “very upset” the nomination had been withdrawn.
“I’m going to get on an airplane at 11 o’clock and I’m going to go home and I’m going to see patients on Monday,” he said. “I’ll make much more money staying in my medical practice.”
Weldon also told the Times his adult children were fully immunized and said he prescribed vaccines to his patients.
“I’ve been described as anti-vaccine,” Weldon said. “I give shots. I believe in vaccination.”
Others beg to differ. When Weldon’s nomination was announced, in December, one prominent anti-vaccine activist wrote on Facebook: “He is one of us!! Since before our movement had momentum. Dream Come True.”
AutismOne, a group that gave Weldon an award in 2013, said: “SUCH GREAT NEWS TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
On the other side of the issue, high-profile figures were quick to sound the alarm.
Earlier this week, Patty Murray, a Democratic senator from Washington state, told Bloomberg that at a meeting to discuss the nomination last month, she was “deeply disturbed to hear Dr Weldon repeat debunked claims about vaccines – it’s dangerous to put someone in charge at CDC who believes the lie that our rigorously tested childhood vaccine schedule is somehow exposing kids to toxic levels of mercury or causing autism”.
While in Congress, Weldon was a founder of the Congressional Autism caucus. He has long promoted the debunked claim that vaccines can cause autism, including in Vaxxed, a controversial but influential documentary from 2016.
Weldon introduced two bills related to vaccines: one seeking to limit use in vaccines of the preservative thimerosal, widely deemed to be safe, the other seeking to transfer work on vaccine safety away from the CDC.
Murray added: “At the same time this administration is elevating prominent vaccine skeptics like [Kennedy] and Dr Weldon to key positions, it is also mass-firing thousands of qualified public health experts and freezing communications across health agencies – and make no mistake, there will be serious consequences to decimating our public health infrastructure.”
When Weldon was nominated, Dorit Reiss, a professor of law at UC Law San Francisco, told the Guardian Weldon was “definitely someone who’s very sympathetic to the anti-vaccine cause”, and said nominations of anti-vaccine campaigners “increase their legitimacy. It gives them a microphone … to express their views and promote this information.
“It sends a message that the Trump administration is willing to work with the anti-vaccine movement. And I think it also sends a message that science-based decisions are not the priority.”
News of Weldon’s withdrawal comes amid increasing concern over measles outbreaks in Texas and New Mexico.
On Tuesday, Murray said in a statement: “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.
“[Kennedy] is already doing incalculable damage by spreading lies and disinformation as the top health official in America. 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.”
Trump’s grip on Republicans in Congress, however, is strong. As Weldon headed home to Florida, the Times reported his nomination had not been expected to fail.
