Dave Weldon, the former congressman who had his nomination to head the Centers for Disease Control yanked away by the White House Wednesday, blamed “Big Pharma” for influencing two Republican senators to vote “no” on his nomination.
Weldon, 71, was slated to appear before the Senate health committee for his confirmation hearing, but 12 hours earlier, was informed he did not have enough votes to make it out of committee. The Trump team told him they were withdrawing his nomination.
Weldon, a physician who has espoused skepticism about the safety of widely used vaccines, blamed Republican Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana for his failed bid – theorizing both were voting against him to appease “Big Pharma.”
“Many people feel big Pharma actually feared me more than they feared [Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.] because of my credibility and my knowledge of science and medicine,” Weldon said in a four-page letter provided to The Independent.
“So, if they had to live with Bobby for four years, they were definitely not going to have both him and me and presumably put serious pressure on Collins and Cassidy,” he added.
Weldon said in a meeting with Collins’s office this week that her staff were “hostile” and accused him of being “antivax.” He said he tried to dispel those concerns by reminding them he has administered hundreds of vaccines every year to patients.
“For some reason the Collins staff suddenly couldn’t get over that no matter what I said back,” Weldon said.
A Collins aide denied staff acted hostile toward Weldon or called him “antivax.” The aide said the meeting between staffers and Weldon was a standard committee meeting with dozens of other members’ staffers, not just Collins.
While speaking with reporters on Thursday, Collins said the news of Weldon’s withdrawn nomination came as a “surprise” to her and she “did not express concerns to the White House” about his nomination.
“As you know, it is very rare for me to make a decision on a nominee prior to his hearing or her hearing, and in this case, we were about to have the hearing and the nomination was withdrawn. I had reservations about the nominee, but I wanted to give him the opportunity to answer questions in a public forum,” Collins said.
Weldon also claimed that Cassidy, someone he said he thought was his friend, claimed he was “antivax” and requested for his nomination to be withdrawn.
A spokesperson for Cassidy denied the allegation, saying the decision to withdraw Cassidy’s nomination was “not in response to any request from Senator Cassidy.”
In a statement, Cassidy said he was “looking forward” to the hearing and was “surprised” that the nomination was withdrawn.
“His poor response to this situation shows that the pressures of being CDC director would have been too much,” Cassidy said.
Weldon and Kennedy, friends for more than 20 years, share views about vaccines. While both men dispute accusations they are “anti-vax,” both have also made statements against widely used vaccines and raised questions about federal regulations.
While serving as a representative of Florida in Congress, Weldon had raised concerns about the CDC controlling vaccines, believing they have a conflict of interest tied to “Big Pharma.”
He particularly raised questions about the use of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine – a highly effective childhood vaccine that prevents severe illness.
In his lengthy letter, Weldon said had he been confirmed to head the CDC, he could have done research “to figure out why some kids have a bad reaction to the MMR.”
“Clearly, big Pharma didn’t want me in the CDC investigating any of this,” Weldon said.
Weldon spent a considerable amount of time in his letter justifying his skepticism of the vaccine, in part by praising a widely-known disproven study published by disgraced physician Andrew Wakefield, which falsely tied vaccines to autism in children.
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