Former Florida congressman and doctor Dave Weldon is President-elect Donald Trump’s candidate to head the CDC and is positioned as a key anti-vaccine ally for Trump’s health secretary nominee, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The nomination of Weldon, according to experts, comes at a crucial moment for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The United States is now facing a number of health risks, such as whooping cough, H5N1 avian flu, and an increase in measles cases.
Weldon was a vocal opponent of the public health organization and its vaccination program during his 14 years in Congress, when he represented Florida’s 15th District.
He proposed a plan in 2007 that would drastically cut the CDC’s function by giving the autonomous agency inside the Department of Health and Human Services control for the country’s vaccine safety. Committees were not involved.
In addition, he promoted restrictions on abortion and promoted the unfounded theory that thimerosal, a preservative used in vaccinations, is connected to autism.
Weldon will have a significant impact on U.S. vaccination policy if the Senate confirms him. The CDC is in charge of managing public health emergencies, tracking and responding to infectious illnesses, creating vaccination guidelines, and gathering and evaluating health data.
Given that HHS oversees 13 divisions, including the CDC, he would also report to Kennedy. Kennedy is a well-known opponent of vaccinations, especially since he falsely claimed that vaccines cause autism.
Dorit Reiss, a vaccine policy scholar at the University of California Law-San Francisco, stated, “Those who are against vaccinations are celebrating this because they firmly see Weldon as an ally.” “He tried to spread the idea that vaccines caused autism while he was in Congress.”
A request for comment was not immediately answered by the Trump transition team.
Weldon and Kennedy are “in the driver’s seat.”
Trump stated that the present state of American health is “critical” and that the CDC has to “step up and correct past errors” in a post on Truth Social on Friday on Weldon’s nomination.
Although Kennedy told NBC News last month that he wouldn’t “take away anybody’s vaccines,” it is unknown what Kennedy or Weldon, if confirmed, will do regarding authorized vaccines or the agency as a whole.
However, Kennedy and Weldon might have a significant impact on the recommendations for vaccinations in the United States, especially those for children.
The pediatric vaccination schedule, which is adhered to by parents and schools, is one of the vaccine recommendations made by the CDC for the general population. It is updated every year and covers immunizations against polio, measles, mumps, rubella, and hepatitis.
According to Jennifer Kates, director of the Global Health & HIV Policy Program at KFF, a health policy research group, the CDC director usually complies with the recommendations made by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, an external group comprising over a dozen pediatricians, public health specialists, and vaccine researchers.
In addition to children’s vaccinations, the ACIP was established in 1964 and offers advice on adult vaccinations, including those for shingles, influenza, and COVID, as well as traveler vaccination guidelines and advice during disease outbreaks.
But according to Kates, the HHS secretary may select the members of the vaccination committee, and the CDC director has the power to determine whether to accept their recommendations.
She stated that this places the CDC and HHS in charge of formulating future vaccination recommendations.
Although states are not obligated to adhere to the CDC’s recommendations, the majority do, according to Reiss. Exemptions from school vaccination mandates may also be granted by the states. According to a recent CDC study, the percentage of kindergarten-bound children who are vaccine-exempt hit a record high of 3.3%.
Reiss predicted that Kennedy, as HHS secretary, would replace ACIP members with anti-vaccine activists who submit recommendations that are approved by the CDC. If the government disagrees with any ACIP recommendations, Weldon, as CDC director, may reject them.
She stated that Democratic states will continue to adhere to ACIP’s recommended vaccinations, but “if they do that, states are a lot less likely to follow the guidance, or it could be fractured along political lines.”
It also has significant effects on insurance coverage: the Affordable Care Act requires insurance companies to pay for vaccinations that the ACIP recommends.
“Insurance companies are not required to cover certain vaccines if the committee recommends otherwise,” Reiss stated. They might cover them. Vaccines were also covered prior to the Affordable Care Act, but at that time, it was up to their morals.
The CDC is essential because the United States has “some very serious infectious disease and pandemic threats looming,” according to Dr. Peter Hotez, co-director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development and a common target of anti-vaccine advocates.
Since H5N1 is spreading more quickly in livestock, poultry, and birds, everyone must work together starting on January 20, Hotez stated. “Now, these measles outbreaks have caused a fivefold increase in pertussis over the past year.”
According to CDC data, the number of cases of whooping cough, also known as pertussis, in the United States is at its highest level in ten years.
According to a recent World Health Organization and CDC estimate, there were 10.3 million measles infections worldwide in 2023. In 2023, measles killed over 100,000 people worldwide, primarily children under the age of five.
