Donald Trump’s pick for surgeon general has distanced herself from the president and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s incorrect statements about vaccines.
Nicole Saphier, a 44-year-old radiologist and former Fox News contributor whom Trump nominated to the post in April, did not give credence to claims that vaccines cause autism during a Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday.
Saphier said she does not know what causes autism, but that she has “not seen reputable evidence that would suggest that vaccines cause autism.”
When Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, 68, asked about the president’s claim that the mumps, measles and rubella vaccine may be “lethal,” Saphier disagreed.
“I do not believe the MMR vaccine to be lethal. I believe the MMR vaccine is our greatest tool for combating measles,” she said, amid a substantial increase in measles cases this year compared to 2025.
“I do not believe childhood vaccines cause autism,” Saphier added.
Last September, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted to stop recommending the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine. to children under 4 years old, instead recommending separate MMR and varicella shots.
In her testimony, Saphier also broke with Kennedy, a longtime promoter of baseless vaccine claims, regarding vaccination for hepatitis B at birth. A CDC panel scrapped that recommendation last December.
“The hepatitis B vaccines are one of the most tangible ways we have to prevent cancer, and that is something that I absolutely am always excited about because it is so hard to prevent cancer in so many patients,” she said.
The White House is publicly standing by Saphier.
Spokesperson Kush Desai told the Daily Beast that Saphier is an “accomplished physician who has practiced radiology at Memorial Sloan Kettering and has been an outspoken voice on breast cancer prevention, intrusive COVID-19 mandates, the politicization of science and the federal government’s role in America’s chronic disease epidemic. She has been a powerful asset for President Trump and works tirelessly to deliver on every facet of his MAHA agenda.”
Saphier is Trump’s third surgeon general nominee since January 2025. She replaced Casey Means, a 38-year-old wellness influencer who embraced alternative medicine over traditional scientific views on vaccine efficacy. Trump’s first nominee was Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, a former Fox News contributor. But Trump, 80, withdrew Nesheiwat’s name after inconsistencies came to light about her credentials, like how she earned her M.D. from the American University of the Caribbean and not from the University of Arkansas, as she had claimed.
A confirmation vote for Saphier has not yet been scheduled. Shortly after her nomination, she was caught deleting posts critical of Trump and Kennedy’s health policies, CNN reported.
For instance, Saphier criticized Trump’s statement that pregnant women shouldn’t take Tylenol due to unproven claims about a link between the drug and autism in children. Women should “tough it out” instead, he said.
“As a mom of 3 kids, I don’t love a man telling me to ‘tough it out’ when it comes to pregnancy,” she wrote in the since-deleted post. “Words matter. Facts matter too.”
A month later, Saphier responded after Trump repeated his message about Tylenol on Truth Social.
“This isn’t the first or second time he has said this. Obviously something was said to POTUS behind closed doors and the public deserves transparency on the data presented to substantiate these statements,” she said.
She followed up that a couple days later in a post that was also deleted: “My son has a high fever and I’m angry that I am now questioning giving him Tylenol.
