President Donald Trump has selected Dr. Heidi Nycole Overton, a highly respected and accomplished White House health-policy advisor, to lead the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Her appointment is subject to Senate confirmation.
Graduating summa cum laude from the University of New Mexico School of Medicine in 2015, Dr. Overton completed her surgical residency at Johns Hopkins. She went on to earn a Ph.D. in Clinical Investigation from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
You will remember that Dr. Marty Makary resigned as FDA commissioner in May. At the time, Dr. Makary was reportedly sparring with administration officials over various issues, including the abortion drug mifepristone, as well as the agency’s approval of fruit-flavored vaping products.
Since Dr. Makary’s resignation, Kyle Diamantas has been serving as Acting Commissioner. This past year, Dr. Overton has been working within the Trump administration as deputy director/deputy assistant to the president for domestic policy.
In a post on Truth Social, President Trump praised his newest nominee:
“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. She is known to take on the HARDEST issues, and bring me solutions that work best for the Country.”
Over the years, Dr. Overton has certainly not shied away from the “hard” issue of abortion, which she has strongly and consistently opposed.
In 2022, the FDA Commissioner nominee called the Dobbs decision and the overturning of Roe “a huge victory for life.” She added, “Human life is not disposable, but a precious gift from God with inherent worth and dignity.”
Around that same time in a Daily Caller column, Dr. Overton pointed out the hypocrisy of the Biden administration’s Department of Health and Human Services detailing the various stages of human development in pregnancy – and yet still supporting abortion right up to the moment of birth.
“It should be clear where the radicalism lies,” she wrote. “Americans should reject abortion radicalism and require policies informed by 21st century science and medicine. Then, indeed, we would all be ‘Following the Science!’”
In 2023, Dr. Overton co-authored a brief for the America First Policy Institute warning about the “dangerous rise in chemical abortions.” In the opening paragraph, the authors rightly described abortion as being “corrosive to children, women, and society broadly because it devalues and extinguishes innocent human life.”
They concluded:
All administrative and legal proceedings on teleabortion should be monitored, and America First policies should focus on immediately halting the effort to normalize abortion-on-demand and on broadly recognizing the evidence of the risk posed to women. In the upcoming state legislative sessions and the 118th Congress, policymakers should prioritize providing greater protection for the two lives involved—the mother and the baby—especially with safeguards to protect women and children from the dangers of teleabortion.
It’s reassuring that the Trump administration has seen fit to nominate a medical doctor so well grounded in science and an individual with moral clarity when it comes to the sanctity of pre-born life.
Given numerous other hot-button issues at play, including the Trump administration’s recent recommendations on childhood vaccines, Dr. Overton’s upcoming confirmation hearings are expected to be contentious. Please join us in praying for wisdom throughout the unfolding and undoubtedly combative process.
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