Trump to tap Heidi Overton as FDA commissioner

The agency needed stability after a chaotic exit, so Trump hired someone who already had a building pass.

President Trump has decided to nominate White House aide Heidi Overton to lead the Food and Drug Administration, according to a senior administration official. Why it matters: The agency was left in turmoil after the exit of former commissioner Marty Makary earlier this year, threatening the stability of U.S. drug development. Between the lines: Overton, currently deputy director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, was one of several candidates that the White House had been considering for weeks. Bloomberg first reported that she was the president's choice. The intrigue: Overton appeared at last week's Oval Office signing of an executive order calling for an overhaul of the childhood vaccine schedule, including slimming down the number of federally recommended shots and splitting up the MMR vaccine into three different shots.

Read it at Axios ↗

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