Trump to Nominate Dr. Heidi Overton for Next FDA Commissioner
According to inside sources, President Donald Trump is expected to nominate Heidi Overton, M.D., M.P.H. as the new commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Dr. Overton does not have a background in food policy or food safety.
The news was first reported by Bloomberg.
Dr. Overton will take over from Kyle Diamantas, J.D., the agency’s Interim Commissioner and previous head of the Human Foods Program, who temporarily stepped into the position after the last Commissioner, Marty Makary, M.D., parted ways with FDA in May after just one year in office.
A board-certified public health and general medicine practitioner, Dr. Overton currently serves in the Trump Administration as the Deputy Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council and previously held the role of Chief Policy Officer at the Trump-aligned think tank the America First Policy Institute, where she led its Center for a Healthy America. Under the first Trump Administration, she served as a 2019–2020 White House Fellow in the Office of American Innovation and the Domestic Policy Council.
During her time as a practitioner, Dr. Overton was a surgeon at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She was also previously a physician advocate through Restoring Medicine and a governor-appointed member of the New Mexico Board of Regents.
Dr. Overton received B.A. and M.D. degrees from the University of New Mexico and a Ph.D. in Clinical Investigation from Johns Hopkins University.
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