Action Item! Demand Senators Oppose David Weldon as Director of CDC
Urgent! Oppose David Weldon as the Director of CDC at Upcoming US Senate HELP Committee Hearing on March 13, 2025
David Weldon, MD, Trump's nominee for Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), has opposed vaccines throughout his political career. The US Senate HELP Committee will hold his confirmation hearing on Thursday, March 13, 2025. We need your voice to oppose this dangerous nomination. Please urge Senators to oppose this nominee in order to protect us against future pandemics and other diseases.
Dr. Weldon is a practicing physician with a medical degree and a former member of Congress. His past work has focused on opposing vaccines and he has been quoted often by Children’s Health Defense, RFK Jr’s anti-vaccine lobbying group. He has been known to support policies that limit reproductive rights.
If confirmed as CDC director, Weldon will likely reduce access to vaccines for COVID and other infectious diseases, and steer CDC in the wrong direction when other pandemic risks emerge. Already, CDC plans to study an alleged connection between vaccines and autism, something long disproved by a vast array of studies. Such a CDC review recklessly gives utterly unwarranted credibility to pseudoscience, conspiracy theories, and deadly myth making. Meanwhile, many other invaluable CDC programs are being cut.
HHS Secretary Kennedy is already breaking promises he made to senators and the nation during his confirmation process. Dr. Weldon is likely to do the same. As public health experts have been raising alarms about a potential H5N1 (avian flu) pandemic, Dr Weldon is likely unable to properly handle another pandemic.
You can submit a letter to your Senators (and House members, who can urge Senate “No” votes), via our Action Network or call or send a message to your senators using their contact information. We need to push both Democratic and Republican senators to vote NO. You are welcome to edit the letter as you wish.
We recommend personalizing your letter if you have time, ideally starting with a sentence or two about why and how this nominee matters to you or could impact you, your loved ones, and/or your community. Aim to keep your letter under 2000 characters, including spaces.
Especially for those living in Alaska (Murkowski), Alabama (Tuberville), Florida (Moody) Indiana (Banks), Kansas (Marshall), Kentucky (Paul), Louisiana (Cassidy), Maine (Collins), Missouri (Hawley), Ohio (Husted) Oklahoma (Mullin), or South Carolina (Scott), your senator has a major voice in this nomination process. The senators mentioned above are members of the HELP committee, so they have the initial decision on the progress of this nomination. Please call your senators’ offices using the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 and express your opposition.
Letter Template
Dear Senator:
As your constituent, I urge you to oppose the nomination of Dave Weldon as Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). I have many grave concerns about him in this role.
Although Dr. Weldon has practiced in internal medicine, he lacks the knowledge required to lead America’s top agency for disease prevention, especially regarding infectious diseases. He does not have the management expertise needed to oversee CDC’s complex array of responsibilities and billions in funding. He has opposed vaccines due to his incorrect beliefs that vaccine ingredients are linked to autism. Ultimately, he will stifle access to vaccines and steer resources toward unfounded theories.
His focus solely on vaccine injuries makes him inappropriate for this crucial role and would undermine CDC’s decades of work in disease prevention and treatment in particular infectious disease. He would most likely fail to guide us through if H5N1 (avian flu) became a pandemic.
I respectfully ask you to oppose his nomination as Director of the CDC. We need someone who will ensure the health and wellbeing and safety of this nation from disease.
Thank you for your consideration.