Trump expected to nominate Heidi Overton for FDA commissioner

President Donald Trump is expected to nominate Heidi Overton, deputy director of domestic policy for the White House, to serve as the next commissioner of FDA, people familiar with the matter told multiple news outlets.

Before joining the Trump administration, Overton served as the health policy lead at the America First Policy Institute, a think tank that has worked closely with Trump. She earned her medical degree from the University of New Mexico as well as a Ph.D. in clinical investigation from Johns Hopkins University. She trained as a general surgery resident at Hopkins and worked alongside former FDA Commissioner Marty Makary when he was a pancreatic surgeon.

Overton joined the administration at the beginning of Trump's second term and has worked closely with HHS on health policy helping to oversee various health policy efforts including the administration's push to redesign the food pyramid, overhaul the childhood vaccine schedule, and work on pricing deals with pharmaceutical companies.

In May, Makary resigned as FDA commissioner following reports that the White House had planned to fire him.

So far, Trump has not officially announced Overton as his nominee. Following Overton's nomination, she will have to be confirmed by the Senate before assuming the role of FDA commissioner.

(Lawrence/Payne, STAT+ [subscription required], 8/18; Whyte, Wall Street Journal, 8/18; Roubein/Diamond, Washington Post, 8/18)

Exemptions for childhood vaccines hit all-time high

The percentage of U.S. kindergartners who received exemptions from school vaccine requirements for the 2025-2026 school year rose to another record high, according to data posted by CDC on Monday.

For the 2025-2026 school year, the share of children with vaccine exemptions was 4.2%, or roughly 155,000. This is an 18% increase from the year before when 3.6% children had vaccine exemptions. It is the fourth consecutive year that the national average exemption rate has reached an all-time record high, with the vast majority of parents withholding shots for nonmedical reasons.

The new data has increased concerns among public health experts that many American communities are losing levels of immunity necessary to protect against a number of highly contagious diseases.

Even small drops in vaccination rates can leave the country vulnerable to such diseases, said Sean O'Leary, a member of the infectious disease committee at the American Academy of Pediatrics. The United States is currently in the midst of its worst year for measles in recent history, in part due to areas of under-vaccination.

"Even though these drops in the last couple of years have been relatively small, they're meaningful," O'Leary said. "They are leading us to have diseases that we really should not see here in the U.S."

Walter Orenstein, former director of the National Immunization Program at CDC, said the rise in exemptions from vaccine mandates is a dangerous trend, as these mandates help protect children who can't get vaccinated and even those who already have the shots, since no vaccine is 100% effective.

He added that many people have gone so long without encountering a vaccine-preventable disease like measles that they don't believe they need to get vaccinated against it.

"Vaccines are victims of their own success," Orenstein said. "And we're beginning to see that even more."

(Rosenbluth, et al., New York Times, 8/17; Stobbe, Associated Press, 8/17; Sun, Washington Post, 8/17)

"By cutting off federal funds for these sex-rejecting procedures, we're following the science, saving taxpayer dollars, and, most importantly, protecting children from potentially irreversible harm so they can truly flourish," said CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz in a statement.

The treatments are already banned in the majority of Republican-led states and have been a topic of debate among health authorities. However, the majority of major medical societies in the United States, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, support medical gender transition for young people who experience marked distress over their gender identity.

(Harmon, New York Times, 8/11; Zakrzewski/Diamond, Washington Post, 8/11)

30 Senators call on RFK Jr. to rescind AHRQ grant cancellations

Over two dozen Democratic senators have sent a letter calling for HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to rescind recent grant cancellations by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).

Last month, AHRQ cut dozens of grants, sending out termination letters saying the agency "is adjusting its discretionary health services research award portfolio in order to better prioritize agency resources."

In many cases, funding had already been stalled, and researchers were unaware about the status of their grants for a long period of time before they received the notices.

"For months, AHRQ had effectively stopped issuing continuation funding for many existing grants, but researchers had received little formal explanation," said Aaron Carroll, president and CEO of AcademyHealth.

"This isn't about researchers losing grants," he added. "These projects study how to reduce hospital infections, improve patient safety, lower costs, integrate behavioral health into primary care, and train the next generation of health services researchers. When that work stops, the people who ultimately lose are patients and the health systems trying to deliver better care."

In a letter to Kennedy, Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), and 28 other Democratic senators, wrote to "express our profound concern and unequivocal opposition to the recent mass cancellations of lifesaving health research grants" from AHRQ, and the "year-long refusal to faithfully execute" the appropriations laws from fiscal year 2025 and fiscal year 2026.

"We did not appropriate these funds so that money could remain unspent while Americans suffer and our healthcare system struggles," the senators wrote. "AHRQ has saved our country billions of dollars in healthcare costs and improved patient safety. Abandoning this work is antithetical to the mission of the department."

The senators have requested a response from Kennedy by Aug. 25.

(Henderson, MedPage Today, 8/17; Fiore, MedPage Today, 7/20)