Former Florida Congressman Dave Weldon, Trump’s pick to lead the CDC, made his anti-vaccine and anti-abortion views clear during the 14 years he served in the House of Representatives.Shawn Thew/AFP/Getty Images

What do anti-vaccines think? and do opponents of abortion have anything in common? They both see an ally in David Weldon, now President-elect Donald Trump’s right-hand man. take to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The doctor and former Florida congressmanThe list of achievements includes presentation legislation that would have stripped the CDC of its authority to conduct vaccine safety research and turned it over to an independent agency within the Department of Health and Human Services. Weldon also promoted the unfounded theory that vaccines lead to childhood autism – a false claim infamous in the past by Trump’s pick for HHS secretary, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.. And on abortion, Weldon is at the origin of an eponymous federal law which forbidden HHS to fund any entity that “discriminates” against health care providers, hospitals or insurance plans that choose not to provide abortion care – which the Trump administration “weaponized” to implement its anti-abortion agenda during its first term, according to the National Women’s Law Center. Weldon introduced the amendment in the House in 2004, and it was pass as part of the HHS spending bill every year since 2005.

In Congress, Weldon also co-sponsored legislation which sought to prohibit HHS from providing Title X family planning funding to entities that provide abortions. (Then Rep. Mike Pence sponsored this bill, and Trump promulgated this policy in office, when Pence was vice president.) Weldon also supported a bill that propose study unsubstantiated links between abortion and depression.

Neither Weldon nor Trump has hesitated to acknowledge these positions. On Weldon’s campaign website for his unsuccessful race for the Florida Statehouse earlier this year, he favors his record on so-called “vaccine safety,” as well as his “100% pro-life voting record” and the anti-abortion amendments he passed in Congress. When Trump announcement With Weldon chosen to lead the CDC on November 22, he noted that Weldon had “resolved issues within HHS and CDC,” including that he “worked with the CDC to enact a ban on embryo patents humans.”

“Dave will be proud to return the CDC to its true purpose and work to end the chronic disease epidemic and make America healthy again!” » Trump wrote.

Anti-vaxxers and abortion opponents are now celebrating the fact that Weldon could potentially control more than $100 million from the CDC. A budget of 9 billion dollars.

“He’s one of us!! Before, our movement had momentum,” the co-director of the anti-vaxx group Mississippi parents for vaccine rights wrote on social networks.

“It’s YUGE!” a similar group in Oklahoma claimedpraising Weldon’s efforts to prevent the CDC from conducting vaccine research.

And both the anti-abortion site Live Action and the right-wing site Daily Signal ran pieces highlighting Weldon’s anti-abortion record, following Trump’s announcement. Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, told the Daily Signal that Weldon “is a proven leader for life, and we look forward to working with him.”

Now in the national spotlight, Weldon appears to be returning to his most ardent anti-vaccine beliefs from the past: he said THE New York Times this week, “I give injections, I believe in vaccination”. When it comes to abortion, however, Weldon appears to be more status quo: his campaign website this year states: “I will always vote to protect the unborn and support a culture that celebrates the value of life.” »