Trump’s Surgeon General Pick Breaks With Him on Vaccines

Evan Vucci / REUTERS 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.