White House officials confirmed Thursday that the White House is withdrawing former Florida Rep. Dave Weldon's nomination as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“It's obvious that he didn't vote in the Senate,” an administration official asked why the Weldon nomination was withdrawn.
Vaccine critic Weldon will appear before the Senate Health Committee on Thursday to confirm the hearing, and the news he nominated was less than an hour after the hearing began. The committee is expected to ask him about his long-term record of criticizing the vaccine and the agencies he was nominated to lead. Weldon is a physician and a former Republican member of Congress.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has faced growing questions from senators in recent weeks to reopen to study whether vaccines are related to autism and suddenly canceled a meeting of the agency's external immunization consultants, which has not been rescheduled.
Minister of Health and Human Services Robert Kennedy Jr. Also facing criticism this week as the risk of measles vaccine is discussed Record outbreak in Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma. Kennedy's department is responsible for CDC, and has history Criticize vaccines.
Axios first reported that the White House was nominating Weldon.
Weldon was the first nominee to face a Senate confirmation of the CDC director after a change passed by Congress. The former draft pick is responsible for Atlanta-based public health agencies that are able to take up their positions immediately.
Ed O'Keefe contributed to the report.
