Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has spent years casting doubt on vaccines, but the people lined up to work for him keep saying the opposite. Since the White House withdrew surgeon general nominee Casey Means in April, a string of Health Department nominees have endorsed vaccination and rejected Kennedy’s claim that vaccines cause autism, as Politico’s Carmen Paun reports. That stance appears to be smoothing their path to confirmation.
The latest is Heidi Overton, Trump’s pick for Food and Drug Administration commissioner. “Every vaccine on the U.S. market right now is safe and effective according to the FDA,” Overton told the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on September 24, 2026. Asked about President Donald Trump’s claim last month that the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine is “quite lethal,” she called the shot “safe and effective” and said “right now people should get that.”
Surgeon general nominee Nicole Saphier broke with the president just as clearly a week earlier. “I do not believe the MMR vaccine to be lethal,” she said. “I believe the MMR vaccine is our greatest tool for combating measles.” Chris Klomp, a current Kennedy aide nominated as deputy health secretary, said he saw no evidence the shot causes autism.
The timing matters. A measles outbreak that began 19 months ago has now sickened nearly 6,000 people and been linked to four deaths, the largest U.S. outbreak in more than 30 years. Two doses of the vaccine are 97% effective at preventing the disease.
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Still, pro-vaccine testimony doesn’t guarantee pushback once nominees take office. CDC Director Erica Schwartz endorsed vaccination during her hearing but has since backed Kennedy’s decision not to attribute some Pennsylvania deaths to measles. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), the Health Committee’s chair and a vaccination advocate, worries nominees will say the right things and then fall in line. “I need to know your ethics system,” he told Overton.
