The White Home is withdrawing former Florida Rep. Dave Weldon’s nomination to be the director of the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention, a White Home official confirmed Thursday.
An administration official who was requested about why Weldon’s nomination was withdrawn responded, “It was clear he didn’t have the votes within the Senate.”
Weldon, a vaccine critic, was set to seem earlier than the Senate’s well being committee on Thursday for his affirmation listening to, and information of the withdrawal of his nomination got here lower than an hour earlier than the listening to was to start. The committee was anticipated to query him about his lengthy file of criticizing vaccines and the company he was nominated to guide. Weldon is a doctor and a former Republican member of Congress.
The CDC has confronted mounting questions from senators in latest weeks over strikes to reopen research into whether or not vaccines are linked to autism and likewise over an abruptly canceled assembly of the company’s outdoors immunization advisers, which has but to be rescheduled.
Well being and Human Companies Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
has additionally confronted criticism this week for inflating the dangers of measles vaccines when discussing the file outbreak
in Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma. Kennedy, whose division oversees the CDC, additionally has a historical past of criticizing vaccines
.
Axios first reported the White Home is pulling Weldon’s nomination.
Weldon would have been the primary CDC director nominee to face Senate affirmation, after a change handed by Congress. Earlier picks to move the Atlanta-based public well being company had been in a position to assume their posts instantly.
Ed O’Keefe
contributed to this report.
