Former Florida congressman and physician 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 currently 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, where he represented Florida’s 15th District.
He presented a bill in 2007 to drastically reduce the CDC’s function by shifting accountability for the country’s vaccine safety to an independent organization under the Department of Health and Human Services. Committees were not involved.
In addition, he promoted restrictions on abortion and promoted the unfounded theory that thimerosal, a preservative used in vaccines, is connected to autism.
Weldon will have a significant impact on U.S. vaccine policy if the Senate confirms him. The CDC is in charge of managing public health emergencies, tracking and responding to infectious diseases, creating vaccine 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 anti-vaccine activist, especially for spreading the myth that vaccines cause autism.
Dorit Reiss, a vaccine policy scholar at the University of California Law-San Francisco, stated that the reason anti-vaccine activists are cheering this is because they sincerely believe that Weldon is 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.
Kennedy and Weldon in the driver s seat
Regarding Weldon’s appointment, Trump stated in a Friday post on Truth Social that the CDC needs to “step up and correct past errors” since the state of American health is “critical.”
Although Kennedy told NBC News this month that he would not take away anyone’s vaccines, it is unknown what Kennedy or Weldon, if confirmed, will do regarding approved vaccines or the agency as a whole.
However, Kennedy and Weldon could have a significant impact on the recommendations for vaccines in the United States, including those for children.
The pediatric vaccine schedule, which parents and schools adhere to, 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 can select the members of the vaccination committee, and the CDC director has the power to determine whether to accept their recommendations.
According to her, this places the CDC and HHS in charge of formulating future vaccine 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 report, the percentage of kindergarten-age 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, could reject them.
States are much less likely to abide by the advice if they do that, or it may become divided along political lines, with Democratic states continuing to use the vaccines that ACIP recommends, she said.
It also has significant effects on insurance coverage: the Affordable Care Act requires insurance companies to pay for vaccines that the ACIP recommends.
Insurance companies are not required to fund certain vaccines if the committee recommends against them, according to Reiss. They might be covered. They also discussed immunizations before to the Affordable Care Act, but at that time, it was up to their morals.
The CDC is essential because the United States faces some extremely serious infectious disease and pandemic risks, 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.
All hands must be on deck beginning January 20 due to the H5N1 outbreak that is escalating in livestock, poultry, and birds, Hotez stated. As a result of these measles outbreaks, pertussis has increased fivefold in 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.
Who will oversee this? Hotez inquired.
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