Senators are slated to grill Heidi Overton on vaccines and a commonly used abortion pill — two of the most controversial topics facing the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) — as she appears Thursday in a nomination hearing to become the agency’s commissioner, according to two congressional aides familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share internal planning.
Last month, President Donald Trump selected Overton, a top aide at the White House’s Domestic Policy Council, to lead the sweeping agency charged with overseeing the safety of drugs, vaccines, tobacco products, the bulk of the food supply and more. A physician who is board-certified in public health and general preventive medicine, Overton has played a role in major health policy announcements, including praising Trump’s executive order to reduce the number of recommended childhood vaccines as “historic.” But she has maintained a relatively lower profile than other high-ranking former and current health officials.
Scheduled to appear before the Senate health committee at 10:30 a.m., Overton will need to win over skeptical senators in her bid to lead the FDA, particularly Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana), a physician who chairs the panel and who has expressed deep frustration at the Trump administration’s actions on vaccines.
Shortly after Trump announced he would nominate Overton, Cassidy said her role in the vaccine executive order called into question her “commitment to standing up for sound science” and “[t]hat alone is almost disqualifying.” She stood near Trump as he said the combined MMR vaccine could be “quite lethal,” without citing scientific evidence.
Trump is also pushing to split the MMR vaccine into three separate single-disease injections, which are not currently available in the United States. Prominent medical associations have said such a move could leave children vulnerable to infectious diseases for longer.
On CBS News’s “Face the Nation” Sunday, Cassidy said he “need[s] to hear that she understands that calling the measles vaccine lethal is absurd.” Cassidy has repeatedly pressed Trump health nominees on their positions on vaccines; Cassidy was also the deciding vote that paved the way for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to become health secretary.
Under Cassidy’s questioning last week, Nicole Saphier, Trump’s pick for surgeon general, said that she does not believe the shot to be lethal.
“Dr. Heidi has been a ROCKSTAR in my Administration, where she has worked directly with Secretary Kennedy, Dr. Oz, and team, to deliver on the MOST TRANSFORMATIVE Health Agenda in History,” Trump wrote on Truth Social last month when he announced her selection.
If confirmed, Overton would replace former FDA commissioner Marty Makary, who resigned in May. He had incurred the frustration of White House officials, while his allies have characterized his departure as a matter of principle, saying he was unhappy about efforts to allow the sale of fruit-flavored vapes.
The selection of Overton has been divisive among supporters of the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement championed by Kennedy. Some MAHA allies say they fear she will not fiercely challenge corporate interests and have said Overton should have stopped an executive order boosting glyphosate, a widely used herbicide. The FDA isn’t charged with evaluating the safety of pesticides, but Overton’s nomination has become emblematic of some of those in the movement’s broader frustrations.
White House officials have, in turn, argued that Overton has been a major advocate for MAHA’s priorities in the administration. They have said she pushed “as many MAHA-minded edits as possible to a mostly-baked” executive order that was “written with national security considerations in mind.”
Ahead of Thursday’s hearing, two former FDA commissioners — Scott Gottlieb, who served in Trump’s first term, and Mark McClellan — endorsed Overton.
“The FDA needs a leader who can turn important health challenges into policy initiatives that the agency can develop and carry out, and who trusts and supports the people implementing them,” the pair wrote in an op-ed in Stat. “Overton has hard work to do but has demonstrated the capacity to be that leader.”
Aside from vaccines, there are myriad pressing issues facing the agency, such as the proliferation of unauthorized electronic cigarettes, how to expand drugs for rare diseases, and efforts to maintain a safe food supply.
The abortion pill mifepristone, a commonly used abortion pill, is also expected to be a flash point in the hearing.
Some Republicans in Congress, including Cassidy, have pushed for the agency to more quickly finish a new review of the medication’s safety, as well as reinstate prior restrictions, such as requiring obtaining the drug in person. Overton has been critical of the pills — a stance that quickly garnered pushback among Democrats.
The pill has been the center of the most recent legal disputes over abortion, with the focus on whether women in states that ban or restrict abortion can legally access the medication. The Supreme Court in May paused a ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit that temporarily reinstated the in-person requirement at Louisiana’s request. The FDA approved mifepristone in 2000, and medical providers and legal experts have said there is “robust evidence” showing the pill is safe and effective.
The post Trump’s FDA pick to face scrutiny on vaccines, abortion pill appeared first on Washington Post.
