Dr. David Weldon’s CDC Nomination Was Killed at the Eleventh Hour

Big Pharma didn't want Weldon to lead the CDC. His letter explains why they made sure he didn't get the job.

Dr. David Weldon was just hours away from his Senate confirmation hearing when the Trump administration abruptly withdrew his nomination for director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Officially, he didn’t have the votes from two Republican holdouts. Unofficially? The move reeked of political pressure—specifically, from the most powerful force in Washington: Big Pharma.

Weldon, a respected physician and former seven-term congressman, wasn’t just another bureaucratic pick. He was a known thorn in the side of the CDC, the same agency he was now poised to lead. During his time in Congress, he was instrumental in exposing the dangers of thimerosal—a neurotoxic mercury-based preservative used in childhood vaccines—and fought to get it removed. He also dared to question the CDC’s handling of vaccine safety data, particularly its involvement in covering up potential links between the MMR vaccine and autism.

“I was highly disappointed to hear that the nomination of Dr. David Weldon to lead the CDC has been withdrawn,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) said in a post on X.

“Although we will never know exactly why his nomination was pulled, I suspect it had something to do with the fact he has had the courage to be skeptical of the consensus ‘narrative’ surrounding the childhood vaccine schedule. Skepticism is the vital attribute of true science, and it is beyond unfortunate that someone with his background and integrity will not be able to help fix what is broken at the CDC,” he added.

If confirmed, Weldon planned to take a closer look at the CDC’s vaccine research, including allegations that the agency manipulated data to protect pharmaceutical interests. That alone was enough to make him a target. But when the pharmaceutical lobby caught wind that Weldon might actually have the power to investigate, the knives came out.

Hours before his hearing, Weldon received a phone call. His nomination was dead. His official statement following the withdrawal is a must-read—not just because it exposes how deeply entrenched Big Pharma is in Washington, but because it also sheds light on the real story behind the Wakefield Lancet study, a topic that public health officials would rather you forget.

Here’s Weldon’s letter in full. Read it and decide for yourself.

Official Statement of Hon. Dave Weldon MD
Regarding recently withdrawal of nomination for CDC

“Twelve hours before my scheduled confirmation hearing in The Senate, I received a phone call from an assistant at the White House informing me that my nomination to be Director of CDC was being withdrawn because there were not enough votes to get me confirmed . I then spoke to HHS Secretary Bobbie Kennedy who was very upset. He was told the same thing and that he had been looking forward to working with me at CDC. He said I was the perfect person for the job.

Bobbie told me that earlier that morning he had breakfast with Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine who said she now had reservations about my nomination and was considering voting no. I had a very pleasant meeting with her 2 weeks prior, where she expressed no reservation, but at my meeting with her staff on March 11, they were suddenly very hostile-a bad sign . They repeatedly accused me of being “antivax”, even though I reminded them that I actually give hundreds of vaccines every year in my medical practice. More than Twenty years ago, while in congress I raised some concerns about childhood vaccine safety, and for some reason Collins staff suddenly couldn't get over that no matter what I said back.

There are 12 Republicans and 11 Democrats on the committee so losing one, was a problem if all the Democrats vote no which they have been doing. I can assume that the White House staff had my nomination withdrawn also because the Republican Chairman Dr. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana was also voting no. Ironically, he is also an internist like me and I have known him for years and I thought we were friends. But he too was also throwing around the claim that I was "antivax" or that I believed that vaccines cause autism which I have never said . He actually once asked that my nomination be withdrawn . So, he was a big problem and losing Collins too was clearly too much for the White House. The president is a busy man doing good workfor our nation and the last thing he needs is a controversy about CDC.

The concern of many people is that big Pharma was behind this which is probably true. They are hands-down, the most powerful lobby organization in Washington DC giving millions of dollars to politicians on both sides of the aisle. They also purchased millions of dollars of advertising in newspapers, magazines, and on television . For any news or organization to take on big Pharma could be suicide. Many media actually carry water for Pharma. They also give generously to medical societies and colleges and universities. I have learned the hard way don't mess with Pharma.

I have been told that Big Pharma had desperately tried to get rid of Bobby Kennedy but were unable due to the strong support of President Trump. Many people feel big Pharma actually feared me more than they feared Bobby because of my credibility and my knowledge of science and medicine. So, if they had to live with Bobby for 4 years they were definitely not going to have both him and me and put serious pressure on Collins and Cassidy.

My big sin was that as a congressman 25 years ago I had the temerity to take on the CDC and big Pharma on two critical childhood vaccine safety issues. Hundreds of parents had been coming to me from all over the country, insisting that their child has been seriously damaged by the inoculations. Some claimed it caused autism. The parents made two different assertions. One was the fact that FDA, CDC, and Pharma had allowed a tremendous amount of a neurotoxic preservative called thimerosal into the infant schedule and that the thimerosal was the cause of the problem.

Under pressure from me and many other members of the House, both Democrat and Republican, the CDC and Pharma removed the neurotoxic thimerosal, but it took them years to do it. One of the things that seemed to unite us in The House who engaged on this was that none of us took money from Pharma. Bernie Sanders actually joined us.

CDC ended up publishing a research study claiming the mercury had done no harm, but there were credible accusations that CDC had incorrectly manipulated the data to exonerate themselves. If confirmed I was planning on going back into the CDC database and quietly investigate this claim. Ironically, I was hoping to find no evidence of corruption ofthe science at CDC. Maybe in hearing it from me members of the public might be reassured and it might help improve the currently somewhat tarnished image of CDC and Pharma.

But I unfortunately also had the temerity to take on CDC and Pharma regarding another childhood vaccine safety issue, the safety of the measles vaccine called MMR. More than 25 years ago there were a series of articles published by a British pediatric gastroenterologist named of Andrew Wakefield. He had seen many parents who claimed that after the MMR their child had not only deteriorated developmentally but had also become fussy eaters and developed diarrhea. He did colonoscopies on the children and discovered that they had a new form of inflammatory bowel disease. His research was later duplicated and to this day he has been credited for defining this form of childhood inflammatory bowel disease.

Wakefield published 15 papers in all. Only one was withdrawn . The one that created the big controversy was published in a journal called Lancet and one of the co-authors on the paper was a highly respected Irish virologist by the name of O'Leary. I actually knew of O'Leary. I used to take care of AIDS patients prior to going to congress and I knew of O'Leary's reputation as a solid scientist. One of the complications the AIDS patients were developing was a form of cancer called Kaposi Sarcoma and O'Leary had shown that the cancer occurred in the AIDS patients when there was co-infection with a second virus called Herpes Simplex Type 8.

Wakefield decided to give some of the colon biopsy specimens to O'Leary who was able to show using a technique called PCR that the inflammatory bowel disease biopsies in these children contained the vaccine strain measles viruses. The live virus in the vaccine was supposed to be weekend and not cause illness. This suggested that the children were not able to handle the viral particles and that it was causing an infection in their bowels which also might have been affecting their central nervous system and causing the autistic features.

When this article was published thousands of British parents started refusing the MMR and there were measles outbreaks. British health officials had their hands full. They decided to get the journal Lancet to withdraw the article and they actually got O'Leary to withdraw his research findings. I was following all of this closely and had actually met with O'Leary and I had looked at his biopsy micrographs and his PCR findings. It certainly looked to me like the vaccine particles were causing the problem in these children , and I was surprised that O'Leary withdrew his assertions.

I then called O'Leary on the phone and asked him why he was doing this. There was a very long pregnant pause. He then said that it had taken him many years to get to the place where he was in the scientific community, and after another pause, he said he had four small children at home. I had small children at home myself at the time and I understood what he was saying. If he didn't do it, he was going to be fired. He was going to be ruined.

British officials were not satisfied with just getting the journal to withdraw the article and getting Dr. O'Leary to withdraw his claims. They then decided to begin proceedings to take away Dr. Wakefield's medical license and one of his lead co-authors. Wakefield by this time had moved to the United States and to defend himself in court would have cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars so he let them take his license away. But his lead co- author Dr. Simon Murch was still practicing medicine in England and decided to defend himself in court, and the government lost and they were not able to take his license away.

If Wakefield had the money to defend himself, he would never have lost his license. The court documents clearly show that Wakefield and his co-authors had not done anything unethical or inappropriate and their work was possibly valid.

But that was all big Pharma needed. They could go around, saying it and feeding it to the media that the research had been withdrawn and Wakefield lost his license. But I looked at the micrographs and it sure looked to me like there was vaccine strain measles particles infecting the bowels of these kids.

The CDC was charged with the responsibility of repeating to Wakefield research and showing that the measles vaccine was safe , but they never did it the right way. They decided to do epidemiologic studies instead of a clinical study. Again, as in the mercury study there were claims made that indicators that there was a problem with MMR were there. CDC was accused again of changing the protocol and data analysis until the association went away.

Ironically, I talked with Wakefield after all of this was over. He agreed with me that we have to vaccinate our kids for measles. He thought the solution was to give the vaccine at a slightly older age, like they do in many European countries. Or we might be able to do research and 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.

There are a lot of additional ironies in all of this. I believe the CDC is mostly made up of really good people who really care about public health for our nation , though its credibility has been seriously tarnished because of the failures in the way the COVID-19 crisis was managed. 40% of Democrats and 80% of Republicans, don't trust the CDC. Many don't trust Pharma as well. I really wanted to try to make the CDC a better more respected agency and killing my nomination may have the opposite effect. Distrust may worsen.

I also have a lot of respect for the pharmaceutical industry. I practice internal medicine and I use medication's in caring for my patients that were invented by American pharmaceutical companies. I can tell you firsthand they are very effective and help a lot of people. The new ones are outrageously expensive, but once they go off patent, they can become very affordable and very life-saving for many people with chronic and acute illnesses.

But I unfortunately, am viewed very negatively by the industry that I use on a daily basis to help my patients. Bobby Kennedy is a good man who really is passionate about improving the health of the American people. President Trump did a good thing in making him secretary of HHS.

Hopefully they can find someone for CDC who can survive the confirmation process and get past pharma and find some answers.”