The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) today questioned Heidi Overton, M.D., Ph.D., the president's pick for FDA commissioner, in a hearing marked by tightrope-walking on issues like vaccines, abortions, flavored vapes and whether or not Donald Trump is capable of being wrong.
Overton conceded multiple times during the hearing that vaccines approved by the FDA, as well as the so-called “abortion pill” mifepristone, are safe and effective. But she stopped short of admitting that Trump has been wrong when dispensing medical information out of line with what the scientific evidence shows.
The committee will next vote on whether to send Overton’s nomination to the full senate for approval.
Though Overton, currently a policy advisor in the White House, focused mostly on the importance of speeding up drug development in order to compete with China in her opening statement, HELP Chairman Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-La.) immediately hit her with questions around vaccination.
Cassidy, himself a medical doctor, told Overton that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., had made promises to him about maintaining vaccine access that he then backtracked on.
“If the president asks you to do something that goes against those guarantees you give us today, what will you do?” Cassidy asked.
“I've had robust discussions with the president,” Overton responded. “I would give him my best advice, and I would follow the statutory requirements for the role of FDA commissioner regarding individual product determinations for safety and efficacy, and that would be what would guide every decision if confirmed to this role.”
Cassidy and multiple other senators were specifically troubled by the part Overton played in a recent Trump executive order recommending that the combined measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine be split into individual shots. No such individual vaccines are currently available in the U.S.
Overton readily admitted that “the MMR vaccine is safe and effective,” but stopped short of calling President Trump wrong when he referred to the vaccine as “lethal” when signing the Aug. 10 order.
“Do you think it's possible for the president to ever be wrong about something?” Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) asked Overton. “Was the president wrong when he suggested that the combined measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine may be lethal?”
“The president asks questions and wants the best outcomes for the American people,” Overton replied.
Asked a similar question by Hassan on Trump’s claims that Tylenol causes autism and his urging of women not to take it while pregnant, Overton again demurred.
“I have not seen any causal evidence that Tylenol causes autism,” she told Hassan. Asked if Trump was wrong when he made his claims, she did not answer directly.
Ed Markey, the veteran Democratic lawmaker from Massachusetts, questioned whether Overton would be willing to stand up to Trump when he goes against science. He pointed out that while Overton described her role in the MMR executive order as one of soliciting feedback from agencies and presenting Trump with options, others have given her far more credit for the controversial order.
“The America First Policy Institute, where you served in a leadership role, said that you were ‘critical’ in the president's executive order to deliver gold standard childhood vaccine recommendations and ‘modernize’ the childhood vaccine schedule,” Markey said. “It doesn't sound like you were just part of the process. You stood beside the president when he signed that executive order.”
Overton was also caught between Democrats and Republicans on mifepristone, largely to nobody’s satisfaction. Though she again stated that the FDA has determined mifepristone is safe and effective, she refused to answer whether she personally agrees with that determination. She also opted not to back the FDA’s current position in an ongoing lawsuit about access to the drug, in which the agency is calling into question its own evaluation of the drug's risk.
“Mifepristone has been approved by the FDA with the appropriate risk evaluation mitigation strategies, so it has met the safety and efficacy determinations of the FDA for those standards,” Overton said in reply to a line of questioning from Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.).
Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) later challenged Overton’s response, claiming “that's not the FDA's position in court.”
The FDA is currently embroiled in a legal battle with the state of Louisiana over access to mifepristone, which had its risk evaluation and mitigation strategy (REMS) updated during the Biden administration to allow for the pills to be mailed across state lines.
In court, Hawley said, the FDA’s position is that the Biden era update was not made up to typical FDA standards. Asked if she agreed with Makary and Kennedy that the Biden administration’s change “suffered from a lack of adequate consideration and safety risk testing,” Overton did not provide a yes or no answer.
Instead, she said that she would prioritize an internal review of mifepristone’s safety that has been ongoing at the FDA since Makary first took the role in the spring of 2025.
“That is, if confirmed, the most urgent thing that I would go and get briefed on and updated on the status of,” Overton told Hawley.
Senator Baldwin also asked if Overton believed that mifepristone’s label should be changed.
“I can't prejudge the determination of a safety review that is currently ongoing,” Overton said.
When Sen. Hassan brought up a 2023 article where Overton wrote that mifepristone is dangerous, the nominee continued to stand strong on not providing an unequivocal answer as to whether she personally thinks the drug is safe and effective.
The final big topic swirling around the hearing was that of Big Tobacco and flavored vapes, the issue that contributed to the departure of Overton’s predecessor, Marty Makary, M.D.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) reminded the attendees of the events surrounding Makary’s departure. On Thursday, April 30, tobacco giant Reynolds donated $8 million to Trump, he said, which was followed by a sit-down meeting that Saturday during which the executives asked Trump for changes to rules surrounding flavored vapes. After phone calls from Trump to Makary and HHS Secretary Kennedy, the FDA approved four new vape flavors from manufacturer Glas.
Not long after, Makary was out as head of the agency.
“That is the definition of political interference in FDA decision-making,” Murphy said.
Asked by Murphy if she saw the connection between the donation and the approvals, Overton said no.
“I reject the framing of that question,” she said. “I think the president is aware that adults are using vapes to quit smoking, and that has been his direction to get the best outcome for the American people in every decision that is made.”
Overton also refused to commit to restarting the FDA advisory boards that have been disbanded or rendered ineffective during Trump’s second term but did say her goal would be to not shut down any more of them.
“I think it's careful wording that your goal will be to not shut down advisory committees,” Murphy responded. “That's not a commitment.”