CSPI urges Senate not to confirm Overton as FDA Commissioner

By her presence in the Oval Office on Aug. 26, 2026 during a press conference on vaccine policy, Dr. Heidi Overton has already demonstrated that she is either genuinely comfortable with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s vaccine misinformation or that she lacks the courage to stand up to that misinformation and refute it. Either way, her support for splitting up the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine into several shots—and therefore leading to multiple doctor visits, reducing adherence—indulges RFK’s anti-vaccine conspiracy theorizing and threatens expansion of the ongoing measles outbreak. Senator Cassidy has said that Dr. Overton’s involvement in the administration’s vaccine rule is “almost disqualifying.” Why the reticence? Her involvement with the plan is fully disqualifying. 

Dr. Overton is also an anti-reproductive health idealogue, cheering the elimination of Roe v. Wade and spreading misinformation about mifepristone, in contravention of the wide medical consensus that the medication is safe and effective. And she supported limiting access to the courts for people claiming injury as a result of exposure to glyphosate (Roundup). 

Lastly, while there are scores of physicians who have experience running hospital systems, cancer centers, universities and other large, complex organizations, Dr. Overton’s management experience is quite light. The Food and Drug Administration has shed thousands of employees, including food safety inspectors, and is struggling to keep up with food recalls and outbreaks of foodborne illness. Despite efforts to frantically re-staff, this is an agency in crisis. This is no time for a commissioner who needs on-the-job training. 

A vote to confirm Dr. Overton as FDA commissioner is a vote for more measles, more outbreaks, and, administration assertions aside, less medical freedom for Americans.