Trump FDA pick dodges vaccine, abortion questions at Senate confirmation hearing

Dr. Heidi Overton, President Trump’s pick to lead the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), walked a fine line Thursday on vaccines and abortion, largely dodging difficult questions from senators.

The confirmation hearing in the Senate Health, Education Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee shed light on the priorities of lawmakers, but offered little about Overton’s views and how she would run the sprawling agency responsible for drug, tobacco and vaccine regulation, as well as the safety of much of the food supply.

Overton voiced support for established vaccines, seemingly contradicting Trump, who called the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine “lethal.”

“Every vaccine on the market right now are safe and effective,” including the MMR vaccine, Overton said, under questioning from HELP Committee chairman Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.).

The MMR vaccine is the best public health tool to respond to the ongoing measles outbreak, she said.

Cassidy, a physician, has said Overton would need to repudiate Trump’s comments to secure his vote. But she wouldn’t directly answer whether Trump was wrong, and declined to say if she would stand up to the president or Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

The Louisiana Republican has repeatedly tried to extract promises from administration health nominees to uphold scientific standards and not upend vaccine policy, to little avail. He was the deciding vote that allowed Kennedy to become HHS secretary.

“The secretary gave me guarantees. He later backtracked on those. He said he had to because the president told him to do something different,” Cassidy said. “If the President asks you to do something that goes against those guarantees you give us today, what will you do?”

Overton said she would “follow the statutory requirements” for FDA commissioners and give Trump her best advice.

Cassidy hasn’t said whether he plans to vote to confirm Overton, but he has voted for every other HHS nominee that came up for a vote in his committee despite his concerns. Overton needs the support of every Republican on the panel if every Democrat opposes her.

Overton is a top domestic policy adviser at the White House and a former chief policy adviser at a conservative think tank. She worked on a variety of administration health initiatives, including an executive order to reduce the number of recommended childhood vaccines.

Overton called that order “historic” and stood beside Trump in the Oval Office when he falsely claimed that the combined MMR shot could be “quite lethal.”

Later in the hearing, Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) pressed Overton on Trump’s comments that Tylenol can cause autism if taken by pregnant women.

“I haven’t seen any casual evidence that Tylenol causes autism,” Overton said, but she wouldn’t say Trump was wrong when he told pregnant women not to take it.

“I’m really concerned that if an FDA commissioner will not tell the American public that the president is wrong about something, that poses a real threat to our health,” Hassan said.

“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.

If confirmed, she would take over an agency roiled by an exodus of top staff and viewed by many in the healthcare industry as less trustworthy and more politicized than it has been in any previous administration.

She will have to navigate many of the same headwinds — political interference, funding cuts and balancing the demands of the “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) movement with the MAGA White House — that plagued her predecessor, Marty Makary.

Overton would also inherit controversial initiatives such as a safety review of the abortion pill mifepristone, and new FDA rules that make it easier for companies to put flavored electronic cigarettes on the market, even without approval.

Lawmakers pressed Overton on both issues.

Despite questions from numerous Democrats, Overton wouldn’t say directly whether she believes mifepristone is safe.

Overton is openly anti-abortion. She described the 2022 Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade as “a huge victory for life.”

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) brought up a policy paper Overton wrote in 2023 while working at the Trump-aligned America First Policy Institute, in which she argued “chemical abortions pose serious risks to women” and warned against allowing “abortion on demand” through telehealth prescribing of mifepristone.

Overton told Murray that mifepristone “has met the safety and efficacy determinations of the FDA.” Overton said she didn’t want to “prejudge” the FDA’s ongoing safety review of the pill, which abortion rights advocates condemn as politically driven.

They fear the results of the review could be used to further restrict access to abortions. Initial results are expected to be announced within weeks.

Overton’s views on mifepristone could complicate support among moderate Republicans.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who supports abortion rights, expressed concern that the mifepristone review is being driven by political pressure.

“This is a drug that is FDA approved, has been in use for well over two decades now,” Murkowski said. She said her state would be in a “very challenging position” if in-person requirements to dispense the medication are put back in place

But Murkowski said she didn’t want to ask Overton about it, because she didn’t expect anything other than “the exact same very specific technical responses” she had given other members who asked about mifepristone.

Overton will also likely need to win over the other moderate, pro-abortion Republican on the panel, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine).

Collins is facing a tough reelection campaign where abortion is one of the top issues of her race, and Democrats are seeking to undermine her reputation as one of the last Republican supporters of abortion rights.

But Collins focused her questions on flavored electronic cigarettes, and the administration’s effort to take down guardrails that have limited the tobacco industry’s growth in recent years.

Collins said she is worried recent approvals of fruit-flavored vaping products will jeopardize progress in reducing youth e-cigarette use.

Overton said the administration agrees about protecting kids from flavored vapes, but noted the recent approvals had the backing of FDA scientists, because the products helped adult smokers quit cigarettes.