Dr. David Weldon had been out of the national spotlight for more than 15 years when he was nominated to head the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But many anti-vaccine advocates knew him well.

“He is one of us!! Since before our movement had momentum,” the co-director of Mississippi Parents for Vaccine Rights wrote on Facebook. And on X, formerly known as Twitter, the Autism Action Network credited the former congressman with introducing legislation two decades ago “to stop the vaccine pedocide.”

Weldon, who was nominated by President Donald Trump, needs to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate before he can lead the nation’s top public health agency. His confirmation hearing is to be held Thursday.

The 71-year-old retired Florida congressman is considered to be closely aligned with his presumptive boss, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the U.S. health secretary who for years has been one of the nation’s leading anti-vaccine activists.

Department of Health and Human Services officials declined to make Weldon or Kennedy available for an Associated Press interview.

When he made the nomination announcement, Trump said Weldon “will proudly restore the CDC to its true purpose, and will work to end the Chronic Disease Epidemic, and Make America Healthy Again!”

The CDC was created nearly 80 years ago to prevent the spread of malaria in the U.S. Its mission was later expanded, and it gradually became a global leader on infectious and chronic diseases and a go-to source of health information.

Today, the Atlanta-based agency has a more than $9 billion core budget. It had about 13,000 employees when Trump took office, but more than 500 were fired as part of a dramatic — and continuing — push by the president and his billionaire adviser Elon Musk to cut staffing across federal agencies.

Weldon has no experience in federal public heath, but that isn’t unusual. The last few presidential administrations — both Democratic and Republican — have appointed outsiders with no CDC experience.

Unlike Weldon, however, those outsiders had been public health researchers or had run state health departments. He is an Army veteran and internal medicine doctor whose main claim to fame was representing a central Florida district in Congress from 1995 to 2009.

After he left Congress, Weldon practiced medicine in Florida, taught at the Florida Institute of Technology, served as board chairman for the Israel Allies Foundation and made unsuccessful runs at federal and state elected office. In a March 1 letter to HHS, Weldon said that if confirmed he will resign from the foundation and from two Florida health-care organizations. He also promised to sell his holdings in funds investing in energy, pharmaceutical and health-care companies.

Weldon was a leader of a Congressional push for research into autism’s causes, which began around 2000. It was fueled by a controversial — and ultimately discredited — study by British researcher Dr. Andrew Wakefield that claimed to find a link between the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine and autism.

The action in Congress was driven largely by U.S. Rep. Dan Burton, an Indiana Republican whose grandson had autism. Weldon was a prominent voice in Burton’s hearings and co-sponsored a bill that would give responsibility for the nation’s vaccine safety to an independent agency within HHS — an idea that not everyone in public health opposes.

But Weldon also rejected studies that found no causal link between childhood vaccines and autism, and accused the CDC of short-circuiting research that might show otherwise.

Meanwhile, Weldon was a friend to practitioners of fringe medicine. When Weldon invited Wakefield to testify before Congress, he also brought in Dr. James “Jeff” Bradstreet, who used alternative medicine to try to treat autistic children. Bradstreet died in 2015, after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration raided his office, of a gunshot wound that police labeled a suicide.

Weldon later appeared in “Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe,” a 2016 documentary directed by Wakefield and produced by Del Bigtree, an activist who later became the manager of Kennedy’s 2024 presidential campaign. In the movie, Weldon repeated suspicions and accusations about CDC that he’d made as a congressman.

Kennedy has argued that experts who advise the CDC on vaccine policy have conflicts from working with, or receiving money from, pharmaceutical companies. Those advisers routinely disclose conflicts in public meetings, but the CDC last week launched a web tool “to increase the transparency of conflicts of interest.”

At Thursday’s hearing, Democrats are likely to press Weldon on his vaccine views and his plans for the agency under a health secretary who has shown disdain for it.

Dr. Anne Schuchat worked at the CDC for 33 years before retiring in 2021, and twice served as acting director. She said she doesn’t know Weldon, but that agency directors gradually develop an appreciation and respect for its work.

If Weldon follows a similar pattern, she said, he could be a great asset: His Capitol Hill experience could help CDC secure funding and political support.

“With an optimistic view, there’s lot you can build on, with what he has on paper,” she said. “With a pessimistic view, if he wants the job to tear the place down, that would be disappointing — and dangerous.”

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Republished with permission of The Associated Press.

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A bill that could impose capital punishment for attempted assassinations on heads of state is finally moving, with the Criminal Justice Committee unanimously voting to advance it.

Rep. Jeff Holcomb’s legislation (HB 653) contemplates adding to Florida law that the death sentence applies when a “capital felony was committed against the head of a state, including, but not limited to, the President or the Vice President of the United States or the Governor of this or another state, or in an attempt to commit such crime a capital felony was committed against another individual.”

Holcomb, a Republican from Spring Hill, said his bill extended to heads of state the protections currently afforded to cops.

“Members, just think back to about a year ago, July 13, 2024, when President Trump had an attempted assassination. If that perpetrator had not been taken out by law enforcement, he would have gone on trial. If he had done that in Florida after this bill, he’d be eligible for the death penalty,” Holcomb said, alluding to the rally shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Trump, however, was not in office at the time, so he technically wouldn’t have been a head of state.

Democrats peppered Holcomb with questions, including about federal penalties for assassination attempts and why in that context a state would replicate them.

Holcomb said current laws “don’t necessarily treat assassination or attempted assassinations for a head of state with the heightened severity that it deserves.”

He also said the bill would provide “deterrence.”

“If you’re going to look to assassinate a head of state, you choose someplace else and not Florida,” he said.

Vice Chair Webster Barnaby extolled the “very, very important bill,” saying it would “ensure that when people come to Florida, they’ll know how to conduct themselves.”

This bill has one stop to go before the House floor.

Meanwhile, the Senate version (SB 776) of this proposal is being carried by another Spring Hill Republican, Sen. Blaise Ingoglia. It has yet to be heard in committee.

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Legislation that could roll back age restrictions on gun purchases put in place after the Parkland shooting cleared its first House committee.

The House Criminal Justice Subcommittee advanced a bill (HB 759) that would reduce the age limit to buy firearms from 21 to 18. That follows a call from Gov. Ron DeSantis to roll back restrictions signed by his predecessor, former Gov. Rick Scott, in the wake of a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

“At 18 to 20 years old, you can be tried for crimes and sentenced to death. You can sign contracts, can sue and be sued,” said Rep. Michelle Salzman, a Pensacola Republican.

“You can get married and you can own property. House Bill 759 rectifies an inconsistency in our legal framework by ensuring that all adult citizens in Florida are afforded their full second amendment rights by lowering the minimum age for firearm purchases to 18. We acknowledge the responsibilities and rights that come with adulthood.”

The bill passed on a 13-5 vote. It now heads to the House Judiciary Committee.

In the 2018 Parkland attack, a 19-year-old shooter killed 17 people, including 14 teenage students, and injured 18 others. He used an AR-15 rifle he purchased from a gun shop shortly before the crime.

Gun control advocacy groups vocally opposed the potential change in gun-buying age, which many lobbied for in the aftermath of the shooting.

“After that tragedy, Florida did the right thing by raising the minimum age to buy a long gun to 21. That law has saved lives,” said Fiona Shannon, who leads the League of Women Voters’ gun safety committee.

“Now there was a push to undo that progress, to lower the age back to 18. Why? What has changed? Have we forgotten the pain of Parkland? Have we forgotten the parents who still wake up every day missing their children, the teachers who sacrifice their lives to shield their students?”

But gun rights advocates say it’s unconstitutional to restrict the right to purchase firearms for adults. Luis Valdes, Florida State Director for Gun Owners of America, said similar legislation has already run into legal trouble in other states, including Tennessee and Minnesota.

“On top of that, the Parkland situation was an abject failure of government, not gun control,” Valdes said. “Gun control doesn’t solve anything. The shooter had over 30 points of contact with the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, and at no point did they take the proper action with him.”

Democrats on the committee criticized House Republicans taking up a rollback of restrictions for the third year in a row. Rep. Dianne Hart, a Tampa Democrat, said gun violence remains a problem in too many Florida schools.

“18-year-olds don’t need guns,” she said. “We don’t let them drink alcohol for a reason: because they’re not ready.”

This marks the first Legislative Session since the Parkland law passed that all House members who voted on that law when it passed have now been termed limited out of office.

Rep. Shane Abbott, a DeFuniak Springs Republican, said if the nation enlists 18-year-olds to fight in the military, citizens that age should be allowed to purchase firearms of their own as well.

Rep. Taylor Yarkosky, a Montverde Republican, said many 18-year-olds are already better trained with firearms than many older residents. He said his own daughter started taking gun safety classes at age 10.

“She’s extremely proficient, and she’s going to college next year at FAU down in Boca, and she’s like, ‘Dad, you’re telling me, I can’t have my rifle? I can’t bring this?’” Yarkosky said. “And I said, ‘No, you can’t under the current law.’ And she is more well trained at this than a lot of people.”

A companion bill (SB 920) has been filed in the Senate by Sen. Jay Collins, a Tampa Republican, but it has not been placed on a committee agenda to date. It was directed to the Senate Criminal Justice Committee.

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