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Updated on: August 19, 2026 / 12:41 PM EDT
/ CBS News
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Washington — President Trump on Wednesday announced he's nominating Dr. Heidi Overton, a physician and deputy assistant to the president for domestic policy at the White House, to be the next head of the Food and Drug Administration. Overton, who earned her doctor of medicine from the University of New Mexico, has worked closely with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Dr. Mehmet Oz, the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. In a post on Truth Social, Mr. Trump said she has helped them "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," he wrote. "Heidi is 'ALWAYS RIGHT,' Secretary Kennedy recently said in the Oval Office! We need her leadership at the FDA now to ensure that the U.S. remains the WORLD LEADER for Scientific Discovery and CURES."
