President Donald Trump’s nominee to move the U.S. Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention (CDC), former Republican Congressman Dr. Dave Weldon, is about to face questioning by Senators on March 13.
Weldon is because of seem earlier than the U.S. Senate Committee on Well being, Schooling, Labor & Pensions for his nomination listening to, and members will possible query him on subjects together with his previous statements expressing vaccine skepticism. If confirmed by the Senate, Weldon could be the director of the company chargeable for defending the nation’s public well being.
Right here’s what to learn about Weldon.
Dave Weldon is a doctor, veteran, and former Congressman
Weldon, 71, served within the Military, and at the moment operates a personal medical follow in Florida. From 1995 to 2009, he served in Congress, representing Florida. Since then, he’s largely been out of the political highlight, although he’s run campaigns—he misplaced the GOP Major for a seat within the U.S. Senate in 2012, in addition to the GOP Major for a seat within the Florida Home of Representatives in 2024.
He was the president of the Alliance of Well being Care Sharing Ministries
From 2017 to 2020, Weldon was the president of the Alliance of Well being Care Sharing Ministries, an affiliation of faith-based organizations that declare to supply options to medical health insurance. The organizations have sparked controversy and criticism from state regulators, who’ve expressed concern that the teams’ advertising methods have led to confusion amongst shoppers over whether or not the ministries would fund medical claims.
When requested about this controversy by the New York Instances in November, Weldon mentioned that through the time he was president of the alliance he “strongly inspired all of the ministries to get collectively and type an accreditation system, and I feel they did,” however since he left, “I don’t know the way rigorous it actually was.”
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He has repeated the debunked declare that there’s a hyperlink between vaccines and autism
Up to now, Weldon shared views just like his would-be boss, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the U.S. Secretary of Well being and Human Companies (HHS), in relation to vaccines. Regardless of years of analysis proving the protection and efficacy of vaccines, Weldon has beforehand repeated the debunked declare that some kids might develop autism in the event that they obtain the measles vaccine.
Dr. Peter Hotez—professor of pediatrics and molecular virology at Baylor School of Drugs and co-director of the Texas Youngsters’s Hospital Middle for Vaccine Improvement—has by no means labored with Weldon, however says the false declare that vaccines could cause autism “is unnecessary.”
“We’ve overwhelming proof that vaccines don’t trigger autism,” Hotez says. “Anybody who desires to reopen spurious autism and vaccine hyperlinks, it’s important to consider both they’re misinformed or they’ve an agenda outdoors of public well being.”
Hotez says that lots of Weldon’s feedback had been made years in the past, and he hopes that Trump’s nominee to steer the CDC has since discovered extra in regards to the subject and altered his views. In November, when the Instances spoke to Weldon, they requested him about his previous feedback, however Weldon declined to state whether or not he nonetheless believed that there’s a hyperlink between vaccines and autism. He advised the Instances that his two grownup kids have been vaccinated, and that he offers vaccines, together with the flu shot, to his grownup sufferers.
Whereas serving in Congress, Weldon sponsored a invoice that handed with bipartisan help in 2003. The invoice launched a program, often called the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Aid (PEPFAR), that allotted $15 billion for HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria prevention and remedy applications in low-income nations. Within the greater than twenty years since, PEPFAR has saved as much as 25 million lives, officers estimate.
Hotez says “there’s clearly a disconnect” between Weldon’s help for PEPFAR and his earlier anti-vaccine statements.
”However once more, these [anti-vaccine theories] had been statements he made virtually 20 years in the past, so what we have to discover out is, the place does he stand immediately and what are his views? So the [nomination hearing] will probably be very instructive find that out,” Hotez says.
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He has criticized federal well being businesses
Like a few of Trump’s different nominees to steer the nation’s well being businesses, similar to Dr. Marty Makary, who has been nominated to steer the U.S. Meals and Drug Administration, Weldon has been a vocal critic of well being businesses up to now. In April 2007, he mentioned that federal businesses “did not free themselves from conflicts of curiosity that serve to undermine public confidence within the security of vaccines.” He accused the federal authorities on the time of dedicating “much more sources to selling the immunizations than in security evaluations,” and claimed that the CDC targeted its vaccine security sources on contemplating short-term unwanted effects, and never sufficient focus was given to long-term unwanted effects. He additionally proposed that the vaccine security workplace be moved out of the CDC and function as an alternative as a separate workplace inside HHS.
Hotez says he was essential of Weldon’s feedback again in 2007. “There’s nobody that’s extra certified to evaluate vaccine security as soon as a vaccine is licensed than the CDC,” Hotez says, including that the CDC has a number of methods in place to watch each the quick and long-term unwanted effects of vaccines.
He launched the “Weldon Modification”
Weldon authored and launched the Weldon Modification, which handed in 2005 and prohibits well being businesses from discriminating towards well being care establishments, medical suppliers, and insurance coverage that don’t present or fund abortion care, usually on spiritual grounds. Nourbese Flint, president of the reproductive rights group All* Above All, says the modification “has been extremely dangerous to abortion entry.”
“That is significantly vital in locations the place individuals don’t have a variety of suppliers to show to,” Flint says. “Notably for these in rural areas the place there are not any different suppliers, persons are caught.”
Flint factors out that Undertaking 2025 inspired the following presidential Administration to conduct “abortion surveillance” via the CDC, which is the company tasked with accumulating well being knowledge throughout the nation. Undertaking 2025 requires HHS to make sure that “each state stories precisely what number of abortions happen inside its borders, at what gestational age of the kid, for what purpose, the mom’s state of residence, and by what methodology.” Flint and different reproductive rights advocates concern that Weldon might comply with via on that Undertaking 2025 suggestion, and that the info collected may very well be used to determine and penalize suppliers and even sufferers.
Weldon has additionally shared unreliable claims about reproductive well being. In 1998, he advised that there was a connection between abortion and breast most cancers; the American Most cancers Society maintains that “the perfect scientific proof doesn’t help a hyperlink between abortion and breast most cancers threat.” In 2002, Weldon advised that federal applications deal with abstinence schooling, reasonably than instructing adolescents about contraceptives, to forestall sexually transmitted infections (STIs)—analysis has discovered that abstinence-only teaching programs are ineffective.
“We’ve seen time and time once more that Weldon has used unhealthy science,” Flint says. “Anyone who’s value their weight in salt has identified that abstinence is just not an efficient coverage towards each STI and unplanned, untimed pregnancies, and that we’ve got a variety of knowledge and analysis on our aspect that having a sturdy sexual schooling and entry to reproductive well being care and destigmatizing has been the perfect methods through which we are able to scale back STIs and unplanned pregnancies.”
Flint calls Weldon “harmful” for America’s public well being, pointing to each his previous anti-vaccine and anti-abortion feedback. Flint says that when individuals share “unhealthy science,” it could result in the general public being uninformed about vital well being subjects, which may have deadly penalties.
