This week, Trump’s nominee to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Dave Weldon, faces a Senate confirmation hearing. As a measles outbreak continues to spread throughout the Southwest, alongside a historically bad flu season and a raging bird flu epidemic that has infected dozens of Americans, Republicans are poised to empower an anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist who has voiced plans to upend vaccine safety review and recommendation protocols. During his hearing, Weldon will have to answer for the Trump White House’s past suggestions that they plan to severely cut and even eliminate the CDC altogether. As CDC Director, Weldon would wield significant power to delay and veto vaccine approvals, spread misinformation, and cripple the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. With Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Dave Weldon at the helm, American lives are at risk.
The CDC “Is In Big Trouble” With Former Republican Congressman David Weldon In Charge. Weldon is a former GOP member of Congress from Florida; he spent nearly 15 years in Congress from 1995 to 2009 and served as a member of the hard-right Republican Study Committee. Trump’s nomination announcement proudly proclaimed, “Dave will proudly restore the CDC to its true purpose, and will work to end the Chronic Disease Epidemic,” even though rumors have circulated for weeks that the Trump White House has plans to severely cut or eliminate the CDC altogether. One reporter wrote that the CDC “is in big trouble” with Weldon in charge.
Weldon Supports Dangerous Anti-Vaccine Conspiracy Theories Just Like RFK Jr. Ever since Trump nominated Weldon, health experts have raised alarms about him being a “persistent skeptic” of vaccines. Most notably, Weldon has argued time and again that there are links between vaccines and autism. He has pushed unfounded concerns about a link between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism, and also spread an unfounded conspiracy theory that thimerosal, a preservative formerly used in some vaccines, led to autism – despite a complete lack of evidence linking the MMR vaccine or thimerosal to the development of autism. When confronted with evidence to the contrary, Weldon stated that the report was “perilously reliant on epidemiology, based on preliminary incomplete information, and may ultimately be repudiated.” He has also implied that there might be “some underlying trait” in certain children that could be activated through vaccination – a completely baseless claim. Under anti-vaccine extremist RFK Jr.’s leadership as HHS Secretary, the CDC is already moving ahead with an unnecessary conspiracy-fueled study into vaccines and autism in keeping with Weldon and Kennedy’s anti-vaccine beliefs.
Weldon Has Big Plans To Revamp Vaccine Recommendations – With Far-Reaching Consequences For Hundreds of Millions of Americans. Weldon has expressed interest in completely revamping vaccine safety review and recommendation protocols. While in Congress, Weldon introduced legislation shifting responsibility for vaccine safety from the CDC to a new independent agency within HHS, and he has repeatedly voiced “serious reservations about the independence of the federal government’s vaccine safety review process,” as far back as 2007: “Federal agencies charged with overseeing vaccine safety research have failed. They have failed to provide sufficient resources for vaccine safety research. They have failed to adequately fund extramural research. And, they have failed to free themselves from conflicts of interest that serve to undermine public confidence in the safety of vaccines.” The CDC director has the power to veto the process of recommending vaccines, which is usually guided by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). Weldon’s nomination could have huge consequences for hundreds of millions of Americans; under the Affordable Care Act, health insurers are required to cover all vaccines recommended by ACIP for free, and the Inflation Reduction Act expanded the slate of free vaccines to people on Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP.
Weldon Is An Anti-Choice Extremist Who Spearheaded A Key Amendment Used By The First Trump Administration To Withhold Federal Funding From California Over Abortion Care. While serving in Congress, Weldon worked tirelessly on anti-choice efforts. He introduced protections for health care workers and organizations refusing to provide abortions to patients, codified as the Weldon Amendment – which has subsequently been attached to every HHS spending bill in Congress since 2005. The Guttmacher Institute found that the Weldon Amendment “emboldens health insurance plans, health care institutions and medical providers to deny abortion services and coverage … often under the rubric of protecting ‘conscience’ or ‘religious freedom.’” In 2020, the Trump administration even used the Amendment to withhold $200 million in federal Medicaid funds from California, alleging that state-mandated abortion coverage violated the Amendment. Weldon worked to ban late-term abortions and permanently ban patenting human embryos as well. During a 2012 Senate debate, Weldon also argued that abortion access infringes on religious freedoms.
Weldon Is Closely Aligned With HHS Secretary RFK Jr. Not only does Weldon share many of Kennedy’s anti-choice and anti-vaccine beliefs, but Kennedy has also cited Weldon’s advocacy work in his own arguments against the CDC, reportedly referring to the agency as a “subsidiary of the pharmaceutical industry.” A prominent anti-vaccine advocate who worked closely with Kennedy during his 2024 presidential campaign publicly applauded Weldon’s appointment.
While Serving In Congress, Weldon Pushed Legislation To Force A Review of the Terri Schiavo Case Against Schiavo’s Family’s Wishes. In the early 2000s, Weldon introduced legislation to force a review of the case of a Florida woman in a persistent vegetative state, Terri Schiavo, keeping her alive against the wishes of Schiavo’s family. Her husband, Michael, fought the Congressional intervention spearheaded by Weldon, and reportedly said that she “would not have wanted to be kept alive artificially.”