A🧵from our new investigation unpacking how the tobacco industry woos Black and LGBTQ+ allies. Last fall, I kept seeing vaping association ads touting a Center for Black Equity report that says e-cigarettes save Black and LGBTQ+ lives. Reporting revealed an odd back story

RT @bylenasun: SCOOP: A vaccine skeptic who has long promoted false claims on the links betw vaccines and autism has been tapped by the fed….

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Tracy is one of the best editors out there and, more importantly, a truly good person. She demands ambition in a positive affirming way. She radiates joy and humor. She's fearless when we challenge power. ProPublica and its local partners are lucky to have her.

The first H5N1 avian influenza death has been reported in the United States, @bylenasun reports. This is the major novel infectious disease threat the incoming Trump administration faces

Those are just some highlights from our deep dive story. Read on for free using this gift link:

Weldon has also expressed more mainstream views on other vaccines, which offers some solace to public health experts

The CEO of Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine organization founded by RFK Jr., touted Weldon for CDC director. “He, while he was in Congress, was the biggest helper at the time to the vaccine choice movement, to the people saying that vaccines are related to autism.".

In 2019, Weldon repeated the false claim that “some children can get an autism spectrum disorder from a vaccine" in a show broadcast by the conservative Sinclair network.

He maintained the assertion that vaccines can cause autism even after he left Congress in 2009. Here he is in 2013 accepting an award at an AutismOne conference, a gathering that promotes the discredited link, for his "courage and vision" in Congress

In a 2002 congressional hearing, he doubted the emerging body of research that vaccines do not cause autism.

We reviewed hundreds of his congressional papers available at Florida Tech to see how he pressed the CDC over the years to investigate a link between vaccines and autism. This is one of the earliest letters in 1999

I spent a few weeks with my colleagues @bylenasun & @aaronjschaffer combing through the history of Dave Weldon, who Trump plucked from political retirement to lead the CDC. Here's a🧵on what we found and how Weldon wouldn't let go of the false belief that vaccines cause autism.

D.C. Council committee recommends expelling Trayon White, who allegedly accepted tens of thousands in bribes

Never change, D.C.

This was one of the tidbits @bylenasun, Aaron Schaffer and I found in our extensive review of Weldon’s public record. Trump chose a leading proponent of the false vaccines cause autism theory to run the public health agency. Gift link:

Before he was selected to run the CDC, former Republican Congressman Dave Weldon listed attempts to “redefine marriage” among the reasons he wanted to come out of political retirement