STAT+: How CDC nominee Dave Weldon’s support for anti-vaccine theories runs long and deep
MELBOURNE, Fla. — Unlike President Trump's picks to lead other health agencies who established their conservative bona fides during the Covid-19 pandemic, his choice to head the Centers for Disease…
MELBOURNE, Fla. — Unlike President Trump’s picks to lead other health agencies who established their conservative bona fides during the Covid-19 pandemic, his choice to head the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dave Weldon, was virtually invisible during that period.
But an examination by STAT of thousands of pages of documents from Weldon’s 14 years in Congress, part of his archives housed here at the Florida Institute of Technology, and interviews with a half-dozen former health officials, found that his support for anti-vaccine theories runs long and deep. His advocacy of these views goes back decades, even longer than those of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Secretary of Health and Human Services.
That steadfast history may explain why Trump selected him to run an agency in which he would oversee vaccine policy and messaging. His name rose to the top of the administration’s short list for CDC directors after a push from Kennedy’s team, three people familiar with the process told STAT.
