In Thursday’s Senate committee meeting, FDA commissioner nominee Heidi Overton was repeatedly questioned about her ability to retain the FDA’s independence under President Donald Trump, as well as her views on vaccines and abortion drugs.
During an argumentative Senate hearing to consider Heidi Overton’s nomination for FDA commissioner, members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee grilled the 37-year-old physician and current White House advisor on her ability to go against President Donald Trump.
Committee chair Bill Cassidy (R-LA) appeared to be a senator spurned as he referred to promises made during Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s Senate hearing in Jan. 2025.
“Secretary Kennedy gave me guarantees. Later, he did not keep those. I asked him why not. He said that the president had told him to do something, and as opposed to keeping his promise to me—to this committee, by extension the American people—he had to do what the president told him to do,” the outgoing senator said during his speaking time.
“This committee needs to know whether you’ll be radically honest, whether you will use your authority to stand up for sound science and protect children’s health,” Cassidy added.
HELP committee ranking member Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) expressed doubts that she will, given her track record as deputy assistant to the president for domestic policy. Many senators noted that Overton stood behind President Trump in August when he signed an executive order stipulating that the combined measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine should be split into three single‑disease shots—immunizations not currently approved in the U.S.
“Based on the work you’ve done to advance this administration’s agenda, I have serious concerns about your nomination to be commissioner,” Sanders concluded.
Cassidy and others returned to this press conference often throughout the hearing. There, Trump had said of the MMR vaccine that “there could be a possibility they’re quite lethal. And separately, it looks like they are not at all lethal, but just very effective,” according to FactCheck.org.
When Cassidy asked Overton whether the current combined MMR vaccine was safe and effective, the nominee agreed that it was.
“The MMR vaccine is currently licensed and approved by the FDA. It is safe and effective, and it is our best tool right now in the public health response to the measles outbreak,” Overton said.
Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) said that Overton did not correct Trump on this claim during the signing. “You stood beside the president when he signed that executive order calling for splitting up the measles, mumps, rubella, or MMR vaccine, and called it, quote, ‘a historic day and historic action,’” Markey said.
Why did Overton not correct the president? he asked.
Overton, a preventive physician, repeated that the current MMR vaccine is “safe and effective,” adding, “I do believe that what the president is responding to is providing additional options.”
Senators also repeatedly challenged Overton to clarify her views on the abortion drug mifepristone.
For Democratic committee members, Overton’s claims that mifepristone is safe and effective appeared to not go far enough, while Republicans clamored for greater criticism of its presence on the market or the current Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) attached.
Flavored vapes were also a key topic of conversation during the hearing. Former FDA Commissioner Marty Makary resigned his position in May shortly after taking a stand against fruit-flavored vapes, initially overriding agency scientists to prevent the approval of the first such products.
Susan Collins (R-ME) noted during her speaking time that Makary was “apparently overruled” on this decision and asked Overton for her position on flavored vapes.
Overton replied that “there is 100% agreement from this administration that we must protect kids from illegal substances and from vapes and from flavored vapes.”
Many senators, including Maggie Hassan (D-NH), pointed to the timing of these events. Makary departed the FDA on May 12. One week earlier, on May 5, the FDA authorized the sale of the first fruit-flavored e-cigarettes, and on May 8, the agency rolled back enforcement on authorized vapes.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D - CT) noted that the FDA’s Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee did not hold a specific meeting or vote on this policy. He used that as an opportunity to raise the issue of FDA advisory committees, which have been dialed back since the beginning of Trump’s second term. Murphy asked Overton to commit to “restarting the advisory committees that have been disbanded under this president.”
Since the beginning of Trump’s second term in January 2025, 27% of all advisory boards have been “eliminated,” Murphy said, adding that of those that remain, there have been 72% fewer meetings.
“If I’m confirmed as FDA commissioner, advisory committees will meet at the FDA,” Overton said, though she would not firmly commit to not shutting down any further advisory committees—at least not to Murphy’s standard.
If Overton does adhere to a return of adcomms, it will be a continuation of a pivot that has taken place in the past few months under interim FDA commissioner Kyle Diamantas, including meetings to discuss Capricor Therapeutics’ Duchenne muscular therapy cell therapy deramiocel and Replimune’s cancer immunotherapy RP1.
Prior to the hearing, Overton—who at 37 would be the youngest FDA commissioner ever—was endorsed by two former commissioners, Scott Gottlieb, who served from 2017–2019 during Trump’s first administration, and Mark B. McClellan, who held the role from 2002–2004 under President George. W. Bush, in an opinion piece published in STAT on Tuesday.
