The White House has withdrawn the nomination of former Congressman Dave Weldon to serve as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Weldon was scheduled to appear before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Thursday at 10 a.m. for his confirmation hearing.

According to Axios, a source claimed that Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Weldon wasn’t ready.

Axios reports:

Weldon is an internal medicine doctor who served in the House of Representatives from 1995 through 2009. While in Congress, he was one of the sponsors of a bill that would have banned mercury from vaccines.

In a 2007 statement on a different bill he sponsored, Weldon wrote that “legitimate questions persist regarding the possible association between the mercury-based preservative, thimerosal, and the childhood epidemic of neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs), including autism.”

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Thimerosal has been used as a preservative in vaccines, although it was taken out of childhood vaccines in 2001, per the CDC. Many studies have found no evidence of harm of thimerosal in low doses in vaccines.

The outlet noted that Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) called on the administration to choose a different nominee “who at bare minimum believes in basic science and will help lead CDC’s important work to monitor and prevent deadly outbreaks.”

According to NBC News, the Trump administration pulled Weldon’s nomination because it became clear he wouldn’t have the necessary votes from the committee.

WATCH:

“Congratulations Dr. Dave Weldon on your nomination as Director of CDC. Dr. Weldon is a 40-year medical doctor, Congressman, and Army veteran. Dave’s leadership at CDC will bring the truth and transparency needed to restore the public’s confidence in this institution. Welcome aboard,” RFK Jr. previously said about Weldon’s nomination.

Per NBC News:

Weldon was told last night that his nomination was being withdrawn, another Trump administration official said. The White House decided to pull Weldon’s nomination when it became clear that he would not have the votes to be favorably reported out of committee because of his past controversial comments about vaccines.

The Senate committee chairman, Bill Cassidy, R-La., had been 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.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., met with Weldon last month, and signaled she would oppose his nomination, saying that she had little confidence he would stand up to Kennedy. She said that Weldon “spent years promoting the false conspiracy that vaccines cause autism, but he has also criticized the CDC’s essential role in vaccine safety research.”

 

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