White House withdraws CDC director nomination just before his Senate confirmation hearing

WASHINGTON — The White House has withdrawn the nomination of former Rep.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, citing sources on Capitol Hill.

It wasn’t immediately clear why his nomination was pulled. The Senate committee chairman, Bill Cassidy, R-La., was 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.

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. In 2007, he unveiled legislation that would have transferred oversight of vaccine safety from the CDC to an independent agency within the Department of Health and Human Services.

Weldon also reportedly helped anti-vaccine researchers Mark Geier and his son David access the Vaccine Safety Datalink, a CDC database containing patient health records, according to an account in the 2004 book “Evidence of Harm” by journalist David Kirby.

The CDC has decided to begin researching autism and potential links to vaccines, according to a source familiar with the agency’s planning.