What do anti-vaxxers and abortion opponents have in common? They both see an ally in David Weldon, who is now President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to run the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The physician and ex-Florida congressman‘s track record includes introducing legislation that would have stripped the CDC of its authority to conduct research on vaccine safety and instead given it to an independent agency within the Department of Health and Human Services. Weldon has also promoted the unfounded theory that vaccines lead to childhood autism—a false claim boosted infamously in the past by Trump’s pick for HHS Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. And on abortion, Weldon is responsible for an eponymous federal law that prohibits HHS from funding any entities that “discriminate” against health care providers, hospitals, or insurance plans who opt out of providing abortion care—which the Trump administration “weaponized” to enact its anti-abortion agenda during his first term, according to the National Women’s Law Center. Weldon introduced the amendment in the House in 2004, and it has been passed as part of the HHS spending bill every year since 2005.
While in Congress, Weldon also co-sponsored legislation that sought to bar HHS from providing any Title X family planning funding to entities that provide abortions. (Then-Rep. Mike Pence sponsored that bill, and Trump enacted that policy in office, when Pence was vice president.) Weldon also supported a bill that proposed studying unsubstantiated links between abortion and depression.
Neither Weldon nor Trump have been shy about acknowledging these positions. On Weldon’s campaign site for his unsuccessful run for the Florida statehouse earlier this year, he promotes his record on so-called “vaccine safety,” as well as his “100% pro-life voting record” and the anti-abortion amendments he passed in Congress. When Trump announced Weldon as his choice to run the CDC on Nov. 22, he noted Weldon’s history “addressing issues within HHS and CDC,” including that he “worked with the CDC to enact a ban on patents for human embryos.”
“Dave will proudly restore the CDC to its true purpose, and will work to end the Chronic Disease Epidemic, and Make America Healthy Again!” Trump wrote.
Anti-vaxxers and abortion opponents are now celebrating the fact that Weldon could potentially control the CDC’s more than $9 billion budget.
“He is one of us!! Since before our movement had momentum,” the co-director of the anti-vaxx group Mississippi Parents for Vaccine Rights wrote on social media.
“This is YUGE!” a similar group in Oklahoma claimed, praising Weldon’s efforts to stop the CDC from conducting vaccine research.
And both the anti-abortion site Live Action and the right-wing Daily Signal ran pieces highlighting Weldon’s anti-abortion record, following Trump’s announcement. Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, told the Daily Signal that Weldon “is a proven leader for life, and we look forward to working with him.”
Now in the national spotlight, Weldon appeared to walk back his most ardent anti-vaccine beliefs of the past: He told the New York Times this week, “I give shots, I believe in vaccination.” On abortion, though, Weldon seems to be more status quo: His campaign website from this year says, “I will always vote to protect the unborn and support a culture that celebrates the value of life.”
