Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had his job abruptly pulled Thursday and is crying there is a MAHA conspiracy against him.
Former Rep. Dave Weldon’s nomination was withdrawn after Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. went cold on his fellow vaccine skeptic, Axios reported Thursday, but Weldon later alleged his snubbing was actually because “big pharma” made sure he did not have enough Senate votes.
“The concern of many people is that big Pharma was behind this, which is probably true,” Weldon wrote in a lengthy letter about the ordeal.
Weldon said Kennedy, who put him up to the job, called him Thursday and “was very upset” with what unfolded. The health secretary supposedly informed him the Republican Senators Susan Collins and Bill Cassidy changed their mind on voting to confirm him and he no longer had the votes that were needed.
Weldon said the pharmaceutical industry was unable to take down Kennedy—who he refers to as both “Bobbie” and “Bobby” in his letter—because of his close relationship with Trump. So, instead, he says they settled at killing his nomination.
“Many people feel big pharma actually feared me more than they feared Bobby because of my credibility and my knowledge of science and medicine,” Weldon claimed. “So, if they had to live with Bobby for 4 years they were definitely not going to have both him and me and put serious pressure on Collins and Cassidy.”
Weldon, 71, is a former Army doctor who still practices medicine in Florida. He was a longtime Republican lawmaker representing the state, using his time in Congress to push the CDC for answers on whether some vaccines cause autism.
His pressing in that role, he claims, is what led to him being ousted on Thursday.
“Ironically, I was hoping to find no evidence of corruption of the science at CDC,” he wrote. “Maybe in hearing it from me members of the public might be reassured and it might help improve the currently somewhat tarnished image of CDC and Pharma.”
Weldon was not alone in whining about some sort of pharmaceutical conspiracy. The CEO of Kennedy’s nonprofit Children’s Health Defense alleged the same, though Kennedy himself has remained mum publicly.
“He was too outspoken on vaccines is what it really looks like to me,” said Mary Holland, the nonprofit executive. “Vaccines are the magic sauce that keeps the chronic disease epidemic going, and I think Dave Weldon understood that perfectly... My guess is there was some kind of alliance between pharma, and Sen. Cassidy, and some of his compatriots in the Senate.”
Sources detailed to Axios a different reasoning for Weldon’s flaming out. One told the outlet Kennedy had decided Weldon, a doctor of internal medicine, “wasn’t ready” for the role. This moment of clarity came late to the HHS boss, with Weldon’s hearing before Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions due to take place at 10 a.m. Eastern time.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the change of heart came nearly at the last minute, with Weldon finding out the news from one of the Journal’s reporters reporters just after 9 a.m. as he was on his way to the hearing. A source familiar with the setback confirmed this version of events to the Daily Beast. Weldon claimed in his letter he learned the news from an assistant at the White House who called him.
At about 9:15 a.m., a Senate staffer reportedly told those gathered outside the hearing room that the hearing was canceled. A Republican source told the Journal that Weldon didn’t have the votes required to get confirmed. However, Congress sources told the Beast there was an unspecified paperwork issue.
The 14-year veteran of the House of Representatives, like his would-be superior, has touted a false link between vaccines and autism. While in Congress, he 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.”
Weldon made the remark while sponsoring the Vaccine Safety and Public Confidence Assurance Act of 2007.
The CDC, a division of the Department of Health and Human Services, argues that there has only been evidence of minor reactions due to the low doses of thimerosal in vaccines.
Even still, the Public Health Service agencies, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and vaccine makers agreed that it should be “reduced or eliminated in vaccines as a precautionary measure,” it added. Thimerosal was taken out of childhood vaccines in the United States in 2001, though it is still present in some flu vaccines.
—Juliegrace Brufke contributed reporting.
