Who is Dave Weldon? White House withdraws vaccine critic and Donald Trump’s pick for US CDC director

The committee confirmed the withdrawal of the nomination, reported Reuters.

Weldon lacked the votes needed for Senate confirmation, reported the news agency quoting a source who spoke on condition of anonymity.

According to BBC, Weldon’s nomination had been sharply criticized by health experts since it was announced last year.

The decision comes as the US faces measles cases in several states and a widening outbreak in West Texas and New Mexico that has killed two people, as well as the threat of bird flu.

Who is Dave Weldon

— Weldon is a physician who has a long history of opposing vaccines.

— Weldon marks the first nominee the Trump administration has withdrawn from consideration. 

—  Weldon served 14 years in Congress, representing a Florida district near Tampa from 1995 to 2009.

— He had introduced legislation that would have shifted vaccine safety oversight away from the CDC. 

— He also repeatedly raised questions about the safety of vaccines that had already been studied.

— According to Bloomberg, Weldon previously spread debunked theories linking childhood vaccination to autism.  Weldon, 71, has promoted the idea that a once-common vaccine preservative has links to childhood autism.

— Weldon would have reported to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an avowed vaccine skeptic who heads the US Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC. As head of the CDC, Weldon would have been in charge of the vaccine schedule doctors typically follow to administer shots to kids.

“The health appointments by the Trump administration have been uniformly unqualified and destructive. Weldon was among the worst,” Reuters quoted Gregg Gonsalves, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health, as saying.

About CDC

CDC, with an annual budget of $17.3 billion, tracks and responds to domestic and foreign threats to public health. 

Roughly two-thirds of its budget provides funds to the public health and prevention activities of state and local health agencies.

The CDC was created nearly 80 years ago to prevent the spread of malaria in the U.S. Its mission was later expanded, and it gradually became a global leader on infectious and chronic diseases and a go-to source of health information, reported AP.