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President-elect Donald Trump nominated former Florida congressman and physician Dave Weldon to serve as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Weldon was born on Long Island, in Amityville, and graduated from Stony Brook University in 1978 before earning his M.D. degree at the University of Buffalo in 1981.
“In addition to being a medical doctor for 40 years, and an Army veteran, Dave has been a respected conservative leader on fiscal and social issues, and served on the Labor/HHS appropriations committee, working for accountability on the HHS and CDC policy and budgeting,” Trump said on Truth Social Friday, Nov. 22.
Trump went on to claim that Americans have “lost trust in the CDC” and federal health authorities, baselessly claiming that they “engaged in censorship, data manipulation, and misinformation.”
“Given the current chronic health crisis in our country, the CDC must step up and correct past errors to focus on the prevention of disease.”
Should he be confirmed by the US Senate, Weldon “will prioritize transparency, competence, and high standards” for the CDC, Trump wrote.
“Dave will proudly restore the CDC to its true purpose, and will work to end the chronic disease epidemic, and make America healthy again!”
Weldon was an outspoken critic of the CDC and its vaccine program during his 14-year run in Congress, NBC News reports.
In 2007, he introduced a bill that would have transferred responsibility for the country’s vaccine safety from the CDC to an independent agency within the Department of Health and Human Services, thereby reducing its role. The bill was not passed.
He also pushed false claims that a preservative used in vaccines was linked to autism, NBC News reports.
The nomination has sparked concern among critics who have noted that the CDC is tasked with tracking and responding to infectious diseases, and developing vaccine guidelines.
Weldon’s nomination followed Trump’s selection of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. – another outspoken vaccine critic – for secretary of health and human services.
Trump has named several other New Yorkers to senior positions, picking one of his strongest allies in Congress, Elise Stefanik, to serve as United States ambassador to the United Nations and a former member of his first administration, Tom Homan, as border czar.
He also named former congressman and gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin to run the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
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