Career conservative and former congressman Dave Weldon will, if confirmed, act as director of the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, where his anti-vaccine views will mesh with those of selected Department of Health and Human Services head Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
President-elect Donald Trump on Friday announced his selection of former Florida congressman Dave Weldon to serve as Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The announcement, made on the Trump-owned social media platform Truth Social, will place another controversial figure in a top health post for the incoming administration—if the Senate signs off. Earlier this month, Trump chose prominent anti-vaccine campaigner Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the head of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). A few days later, celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz was named as the new administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). HHS encompasses CMS, the CDC, FDA, NIH and multiple other agencies and offices.
“Americans have lost trust in the CDC and in our Federal Health Authorities,” Trump wrote, pointing to alleged “censorship, data manipulation, and misinformation” by the government. “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.”
Weldon, according to Trump, is a good pick for this mission. Aside from being a medical doctor for four decades, the former Republican congressman “has been a respected conservative leader on fiscal and societal issues” and has previously “successfully worked with the CDC to enact a ban on patents for human embryos.”
Industry analysts are less optimistic, however. BMO Capital Markets’ Evan Seigerman in a note on Sunday pointed out that Weldon is well-known as a staunch vaccine critic, making him a fit for Kennedy and the likely direction the HHS will take under Trump.
And while the “CDC is not a driver of policy,” as Seigerman noted, Weldon’s directorship—under Kennedy’s leadership—could still have far-reaching implications for the public and the industry, especially since a key role of the CDC is to review and recommend vaccines for wide use. This process is usually guided by an outside panel of experts, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, but the CDC director has the power to quash recommendations.
On Friday, Trump also confirmed that he has chosen Marty Makary, a pancreatic surgeon at Johns Hopkins, as FDA commissioner. Like Weldon and Kennedy, Makary has a track record of being critical of vaccine policies, specifically in the context of COVID-19. In an August 2023 opinion article for The Wall Street Journal, Makary questioned the Biden administration’s approval of a booster shot without, he said, sufficient testing.
Still, Seigerman thinks that Makary “will be positively received by investors and industry, given his experience and engagement with the public and medical community.”
“We are most positive on Dr. Makary as the pick for FDA commissioner,” Seigerman wrote, while noting that “we are most cautious on Rep. Dave Weldon for CDC given his views on vaccination.”
Trump on Friday also named Janette Nesheiwat, a practicing physician and a Fox News contributor, as Surgeon General.
