In a surprising move on Thursday, the White House abruptly withdrew Dr. Dave Weldon’s nomination to lead the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Weldon, a former Republican congressman from Florida, was set to testify before the Senate Health Committee for his confirmation. However, Weldon reportedly received notification of the withdrawal just before his scheduled appearance.
The nomination, announced last November, faced opposition primarily due to Weldon’s views on vaccines and autism. These views had aligned Weldon with Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. A medical doctor, Weldon has insisted, “I give shots, I believe in vaccination”—but he also believes the CDC has attempted to “short-circuit important research and draw premature conclusions” to dismiss any connection between vaccines and the development of autism in children.
“Until we get a free and open dialogue within the scientific community, I don’t think, for one, I will ever be satisfied that there isn’t some data suggesting that some children may have serious side effects from some of these vaccines that is really going undetected, unnoticed, and they may actually cause autism,” he said in 2002.
According to White House officials speaking to the New York Times, the decision to pull Weldon’s nomination was made after it became clear he lacked the necessary Senate votes for confirmation.