Scoop: White House to pull CDC director nomination [View all]

Source: Axios

21 mins ago


The White House is withdrawing the nomination of Dave Weldon to be the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), per a source close to Senate health committee and another source familiar.

Why it matters: The former Florida congressman was scheduled to appear before the committee this morning for his confirmation hearing. But his anti-vaccine views have garnered attention since he was nominated months ago and were sure to play a prominent role in questioning.

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy himself said Weldon wasn't ready, per one of the sources.

Background: 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."

Read more: https://www.axios.com/2025/03/13/white-house-pulls-cdc-nomination