March 14, 2025
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Disability in Health Care Reporting Fellow

When I was a bright young lass of 25, my friends and I would skip through the streets of Cincinnati, shouting, “Crunch, crunch, I don’t want no lunch. All I want is potato chips.” Slim Gaillard with the song of the century, by my reckoning. Happy National Potato Chip Day.

Anyway, Dave Weldon found out his nomination for CDC head was being pulled hours before his hearing. Brutal. Someone give that man potato chips.

POLITICS

Weldon dropped for CDC

Brendan Farrington/AP

The Trump administration withdrew the nomination of Dave Weldon as its pick to run the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hours before he was scheduled to appear for a crucial hearing. The physician’s long track record of criticizing vaccines torpedoed his chances of winning confirmation. The withdrawal marked a rare setback for a Trump nominee, and for the broader Make America Healthy Again movement.

Weldon, a physician, has promoted anti-vaccine theories for decades, according to a STAT review of his congressional record. He held fast to the belief that vaccines caused autism, even though researchers have since debunked that theory. Weldon’s lengthy public statement spends a significant portion defending Andrew Wakefield, the British researcher who popularized the theory.

For more explanation behind the eleventh-hour withdrawal and the senators behind the opposition, read my colleagues’ story.

HEARINGS

And in other health agency nominee news…

While Weldon was withdrawn, the day’s other nominations continued as expected. The Senate health committee voted Thursday to endorse Marty Makary as Food and Drug Administration commissioner and Jay Bhattacharya as director of the National Institutes of Health.

Keep your eyes peeled for STAT’s coverage of today’s hearing, featuring former surgeon Mehmet Oz, who’s vying to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. How is Dr. Oz, the former daytime television star, in line to lead a $1.5 trillion agency? Take a gander at my colleague Tara Bannow’s brilliant profile of the man and his brand of “wellness woo.” 

If you’re planning on watching along with us today, pay attention to whether senators ask about Oz’s stock holdings. He says he’ll divest from companies that CMS oversees, like UnitedHealth and HCA Healthcare. Stay tuned. 

FACT-CHECKING

RFK’s measles claims are wrong

When Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was confirmed as America’s secretary of health and human services, neutral observers might have asked themselves: Would it be possible for a lawyer who had questioned the safety of childhood vaccinations for two decades to reconsider his views?

It looks like the answer is “no.” 

Meanwhile, the infected count in Texas’ measles outbreak ticks higher every day. A 2024 study in the The Lancet estimated that measles vaccines prevented 93.7 million deaths globally between 1974 and 2024. And yet, Kennedy falsely insisted on Fox News that the measles vaccine can kill people. Researchers say that simply isn’t true, except potentially in a small number of people with compromised immune systems who are not supposed to receive it.

Read the rest of Matthew Herper’s scorching opinion about Kennedy, medical risk and the measles outbreak. 

HEALTH TECH

Why disabled people are at risk from AI

Many disabled peoples’ health requires near-constant oversight, and the recent profusion of health technologies have made this scenario possible. But a new report from the Center for Democracy and Technology and the American Association of People with Disabilities shows how health technologies that rely on artificial intelligence and algorithmic systems can be a double-edged sword for people with disabilities. 

It’s the latest research into how a person’s identities can affect the care they receive from the new technologies. Until recently, much of the relevant analysis has centered around race and gender, but more researchers are turning their eyes towards the 20% of Americans with disabilities. The document offers recommendations for how providers, hospitals and people with disabilities might navigate AI-powered technologies.

Read more of my Q&A with the report’s co-authors here.

FIRST OPINION

Conflict-free FDA advisory committees are a mistake

The cornerstones of every Food and Drug Administration advisory committee are the clinical experts who serve on them. The other bedrock? Committee meetings open to the public. Such transparency is why the meetings are valuable, but Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has called for “conflict-free” advisory committee members. 

That’s a mistake, writes Peter J. Pitts, a former FDA associate commissioner who was the agency’s senior official in charge of advisory committees. The agency is forced to explain and defend its scientific thinking in public, before a panel of experts, to make sure that no clinical stone goes unturned. Read more from Pitts about why shrouding advisory committees under a veil of secrecy and removing experts would be “dangerous” for patient outcomes.

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