In The Politics of Autism, I analyze the myth that vaccines cause autism. This bogus idea can hurt people by allowing diseases to spread. Examples include measles, COVID, flu, and polio.
President-elect Donald Trump on Friday announced that Dave Weldon is his choice to serve as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, the federal government’s top public health agency.
Weldon, 71, is a medical doctor and former lawmaker who served in the House, representing Florida. The former congressman has been a strong critic of the CDC, especially its vaccine program. Weldon has championed the long-debunked notion that thimerosal, a vaccine preservative, is linked to autism.
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Weldon was one of the few members of Congress to support the debunked theory that vaccines cause autism and pushed the government to study a connection between vaccines and autism. He was a founding member of the Congressional Autism Caucus and pushed for thimerosal to be removed from vaccines.
Thimerosal was largely removed from all childhood vaccines in 2001. Flu shots were an exception; Weldon sponsored legislation to ban preservative levels of thimerosal from them as well. In a 2008 press release, he accused the CDC of prioritizing high immunization rates while “vaccine safety ranks near the bottom both in priorities and funding.”
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If Kennedy and Weldon are confirmed, they could influence the vaccine recommendation process by naming vaccine skeptics to the agency’s vaccine advisory committee.
Known as the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, the committee examines safety and effectiveness data once a vaccine has been authorized or approved by the FDA. It recommends who should get the medicine, how many doses and how often. Its recommendations have to be approved by the CDC director to become policy. The recommendations help determine whether the vaccines are covered at no cost for children and adults.
The committee has up to 19 members whose expertise includes virology, immunology, pediatrics and infectious diseases. They are nominated by the CDC and approved by the HHS secretary. No members are federal government employees.
