Medical Professionals Call on Senate to Reject Heidi Overton to Lead FDA

Dear Honorable Members of the United States Senate:

As physicians and medical professionals concerned about our patients’ health and safety, we urge you to reject the nomination of Dr. Heidi Overton to serve as Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Dr. Overton’s dangerous record on vaccines and extremist anti-abortion advocacy are deeply troubling, and render her unfit to lead such a critical public health institution.

As you know, Americans collectively rely on the FDA to ensure that the food they eat, the medicines they take, the vaccines they receive, and the medical devices they use are safe and effective. The FDA’s mission is explicitly grounded in science: protecting public health by evaluating the safety and efficacy of medical products and ensuring the safety of our nation’s food supply.

We understand the enormous responsibility that comes with making decisions that can affect people’s health and safety — we make these decisions every day. FDA decisions must be based on rigorous evidence, careful evaluation of risks and benefits, and the best available scientific data — not political ideology.

Dr. Overton’s record makes it abundantly clear that she would not uphold that standard.

Dr. Overton opposes school vaccine requirements, and she played a key role in the Trump administration’s recent orders to alter childhood vaccine policies, which is exacerbating chaos and confusion for parents who are simply trying to protect their children from preventable disease. 

Dr. Overton appeared alongside President Trump when he announced an executive order directing changes to childhood vaccine recommendations, including a call for the MMR vaccine to be offered as separate measles, mumps, and rubella shots, despite decades of research showing that the MMR vaccine is safe and effective. Breaking up the vaccine only adds red tape and costs for families, and undermines trust in the safe vaccine. 

Yet, Dr. Overton stood proudly in the Oval Office during the announcement, calling Trump’s order “a historic action” at a moment when measles outbreaks across the country are the worst in over three decades. We have now seen the most measles-related deaths since 1992 – deaths that are preventable with a safe, effective, and rigorously-tested vaccine. 

We are equally concerned that Dr. Overton has been an outspoken opponent of abortion and has advocated for greater restrictions on mifepristone, or medication abortion. She celebrated the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade as a “huge victory for life,” when in reality, eliminating the federal legal right to abortion has led to preventable deaths of women across the nation. Dr. Overton has called abortion, “corrosive to children, women, and society.” She has pushed reckless disinformation about medication abortion, characterizing it as dangerous, despite the fact that it’s been shown to be exceedingly safe and effective for decades. 

In 2023, Dr. Overton authored a policy paper opposing medication abortion access via telehealth. That is especially concerning as the FDA is currently conducting a new review of mifepristone — a “study” which could be used by the Trump administration to ban its distribution. The FDA’s decisions about this medication should be made according to science and facts, not according to an individual’s ideological position on abortion. Dr. Overton’s extensive and extremist anti-abortion advocacy is in diametric opposition with that principle.

The FDA Commissioner must be prepared to follow the evidence wherever it leads, even when that evidence conflicts with political preferences. They must be willing to listen to career scientists, public health experts, physicians, providers, patients, and researchers and to make independent regulatory decisions.

At a time when public confidence in vaccines is already under strain, and foodborne illnesses have been sickening tens of thousands of Americans, the FDA cannot afford to have its scientific independence called into question. The FDA requires a commissioner who will put evidence and patient safety ahead of ideology and political pressure. Dr. Overton’s blatant attacks on abortion and support for President Trump’s dangerous vaccine orders disqualify her from the position.

A vote to confirm Dr. Heidi Overton is an attack on abortion access, vaccine access, and public health. We urge you to vote against confirming Dr. Heidi Overton as Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Sincerely,

The undersigned physicians and medical professionals