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President Donald Trump has suddenly withdrawn his nominee to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, hours before he was set to testify at a Senate confirmation hearing.
Just 12 hours before Dave Weldon, a former congressman from Florida, was supposed to appear before the Senate health committee at the Capitol, a White House staffer informed him his nomination had been pulled, Weldon told The Independent in a statement.
Weldon, 71, said the staffer informed him he did not have enough votes to be confirmed.
The hearing, scheduled for 10 a.m. on Thursday, would have been the first time an agency director would have been subject to the confirmation process.
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The Independent has asked the White House for comment.
Trump nominated Weldon, a little-known former politician, to serve as head of the CDC in November.
Weldon’s nomination was subject to scrutiny due to his casual link between vaccines and autism – a debunked theory. He had repeated the disproven claim that children could develop autism after being vaccinated against measles. Those views aligned with claims Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has made in the past.
While serving in Congress, representing Florida’s 15th district from 1995 until 2009, Weldon had criticized officials in the CDC and Food and Drug Administration for having conflicts of interest and undermining public confidence in the safety of vaccines.
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However, Weldon has also defended his record on vaccines, saying he “believes” in vaccines and that both of his adult children were immunized. As a physician, he said he had prescribed vaccines to patients.
Senate committee members were expected to grill Weldon about his views during the hearing.
Trump has not named a new nominee to fill the position leading the CDC.
