White House pulls CDC director nomination hours before hearing

In a statement he shared with C&EN, David Weldon— a physician and former Republican congressperson from Florida —says he received a call late March 12 from an assistant at the White House. Weldon was told that his nomination to lead the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was being withdrawn. The reason: “there were not enough votes to get me confirmed,” Weldon says in the statement. Members of the US Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) were set to probe Weldon in a public hearing on March 13. But the committee cancelled the hearing after Weldon’s nomination was withdrawn. Committee member Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), who’d separately met with Weldon on Feb. 20, issued a press release March 13 highlighting her previous comments to Bloomberg News that she was “deeply disturbed to hear Dr. Weldon repeat debunked claims about vaccines—it’s dangerous to put someone in