Trump Picks Former Florida Rep. Weldon To Lead Cdc

President-elect Donald Trump has tapped former Florida Rep. Dave Weldon, a physician and vaccine safety skeptic, to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

While in Congress, Weldon introduced legislation to move oversight of vaccine safety from the CDC to an independent agency within HHS. He has also repeatedly voiced serious reservations about the independence of the federal government’s vaccine safety review process, and previously suggested that a mercury-based preservative once commonly used in vaccines, thimerosal, is linked to a rise in autism.

“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,” Weldon said in a statement at the time.

Weldon, who served in Congress for nearly two decades, has also raised concerns about the safety of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine and Gardasil, the vaccine that girds against the papillomavirus virus, which can lead to cervical cancer.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Trump’s pick for Health and Human Services secretary, has cited Weldon’s advocacy in his own arguments against the CDC, which he has referred to as a “subsidiary of the pharmaceutical industry.”

“Congressman Dave Weldon has pointed out that the primary metric for success across the CDC is how many vaccines the agency sells and how successfully the agency expands its vaccine program — regardless of any negative effects on human health,” Kennedy said, in an interview posted on the website of Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine organization founded by Kennedy. “Weldon exposed how the Immunization Safety Office, which is supposed to ensure vaccine efficacy and safety, has become subsumed in that metric.”

Trump, in a statement, called Weldon a “respective conservative leader on fiscal and social issues” and said that the former congressman would help restore confidence in the nation’s health system.

“Americans have lost trust in the CDC and in our Federal Health Authorities, who have engaged in censorship, data manipulation, and misinformation,” Trump said. “Given the current Chronic Health Crisis in our Country, the CDC must step up and correct past errors to focus on the Prevention of Disease.”

“The current Health of Americans is critical, and CDC will play a big role in helping to ensure Americans have the tools and resources they need to understand the underlying causes of disease, and the solutions to cure these diseases,” Trump added.

Weldon also garnered national attention in the early 2000s for his involvement in the case of Terri Schiavo, a Florida woman who was in a persistent vegetative state. He introduced legislation to force a review of the case by the federal government.

He served on the Labor and HHS Appropriations Subcommittee while in Congress, working on accountability issues. A fierce proponent in Congress of banning late-term abortions, he has also called Jesus Christ one of his biggest political influences.

The CDC is dealing with a few key threats which Weldon, if confirmed, will inherit from current Director Mandy Cohen. CDC is responding to a widespread outbreak of H5N1 avian flu in dairy cattle that has spread to a few dozen humans this year — a potential pandemic threat.

The agency is also working to combat several threats from overseas, including a more deadly version of mpox that’s spread rapidly throughout the Democratic Republic of the Congo this year and jumped to a handful of countries outside of Africa.

Weldon was one of three senior health picks announced Friday evening, in addition to surgeon general and FDA commissioner.