‘He’s one of us!’: American anti-vaxxers welcome David Weldon’s appointment to CDC
When Donald Trump nominated David Weldon, a 71-year-old doctor from Florida who has long questioned the safety of vaccines, to lead the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), anti-vaccine activists celebrated.
The move comes as the U.S. faces increasing threats from bird flu and MPox, as well as resurgences of whooping cough, measles and other vaccine-preventable diseases.
“He’s one of us!!” the co-director of the anti-vax group Mississippi Parents for Vaccine Rights wrote on Facebook. “Since before our movement had momentum. Dream come true.”
“More good news every day!” wrote another prominent anti-vaxxer in West Virginia.
“SUCH AWESOME NEWS TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” has announced AutismOne, a group that has done just that platformized the anti-vaxxer who recommended chlorine dioxide, essentially industrial bleach, to ‘cure’ autism. The organization also presented Weldon with an award in 2013.
“He is definitely someone who is very sympathetic to the anti-vaccine cause,” said Dorit Reiss, a law professor at UC Law San Francisco.
As a representative in the U.S. House from 1995 to 2009, Weldon was a founding member of the Congressional Autism caucus, and introduced two bills related to vaccines.
A account would limit who can receive vaccines containing thimerosal, even though at the time almost all vaccines were already made without the preservative, despite evidence that low doses of thimerosal are safe.
Another one account attempted to move the CDC’s vaccine safety work into a separate, independent agency, a major change.
When he left the U.S. House of Representatives in 2008, Weldon spotted he was done with politics. In any case, politics seemed to be done with him: After failed primaries for the U.S. Senate in 2012 and again for the U.S. House of Representatives in 2024, Weldon returned to practicing private medicine.
Now Weldon has been nominated to one of the most politicized agencies in the country.
But Weldon never completely disappeared from the public spotlight. Robert F Kennedy Jr, Trump’s pick to lead health and human services, has done that many times invoked Weldon claims that agencies like the CDC are in the grip of pharmaceutical interests.
Weldon appeared in the anti-vaccine films Shoot ‘Em Up and Vaxxed, directed by gastroenterologist Andrew Wakefield, to sow doubt about vaccines.
Weldon said he was trying to slow down the process of the CDC’s investigation into the link between autism and the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine – a theory completely discredited by Wakefield based on unethical research.
“It just didn’t seem that way to me, we had a system that was credible,” Weldon said in 2016’s Vaxxed. He claimed the agency was trying to “short-circuit important research and jump to conclusions” to “shut the door permanently and completely.” close” to any link between the MMR vaccine and autism, which research has repeatedly debunked.
Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine organization led by RFK Jr until he left last year to pursue the US presidency, said that officials like Weldon would abolish the federal law that compensates people for rare complications after vaccines, rather than holding vaccine makers liable in each case — which could effectively end production of important childhood vaccines.
“That would be a real risk,” Reiss said. “If you take away the liability protections from routine childhood vaccines, manufacturers could potentially exit that market, leaving children without access to these vaccines.”
Such a move would also make it harder for people to get compensation for their very rare side effects, as their claims would have to be assessed individually by the court.
As HHS secretary, Kennedy could also replace members of the CDC’s independent vaccine advisory committee. As CDC director, Weldon could reject recommendations from the advisors.
The CDC makes evidence-based recommendations for immunizations, including those given routinely in childhood. Although states are not required to follow the recommendations, most do.
Insurance companies are only required to cover vaccines recommended through this process, while public health departments could lose money administering vaccinations to the uninsured, creating significant access problems.
Weldon could also influence the CDC’s public messaging on vaccine safety and effectiveness.
All nominees must be confirmed by Congress, a process that could take months. But even if they don’t make it through the confirmation process, even naming such positions can advance dangerous and anti-scientific ideas, Reiss said.
“I think it increases their legitimacy. It gives them a microphone… to express their opinions and promote this information,” Reiss said.
“It sends a signal that the Trump administration is willing to work with the anti-vaccine movement. And I think it also sends a message that science-based decisions are not the priority.”