FDA nominee Dr. Heidi Overton is scheduled to face Senate health committee questions Thursday, with senators likely to press her on vaccines, abortion pill mifepristone and other contested policies. She needs a majority on the 21-member committee before the full Senate votes.
If confirmed, Overton would inherit an FDA review of mifepristone’s safety, ordered by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy last year. The FDA has repeatedly affirmed the drug’s safety and broadened access, including mail delivery, but says the review is ongoing and has offered few details. Overton also backed a plan to break up combination vaccines; last month, she stood with Trump and Kennedy as they falsely suggested the vaccines could contribute to autism. Committee chairman Bill Cassidy called her support for spacing out vaccinations “almost disqualifying.”
Overton worked as a White House domestic policy adviser and previously was an executive at the America First Policy Institute, where she wrote critically of abortion and transgender care. Her abortion views could complicate support from Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, both of whom have backed federal access to abortion.
