The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions convened Sept. 16 to consider three of President Donald Trump’s nominees for top HHS posts: Nicole Saphier, MD, for surgeon general, Chris Klomp for HHS deputy secretary, and Timothy Westlake, MD, for assistant secretary for mental health and substance use.
Six things to know:
1. President Trump nominated Dr. Saphier in April after withdrawing his previous pick, Casey Means, MD. Dr. Saphier is a radiologist and director of breast imaging at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center’s facility in Monmouth County, N.J. If confirmed, she would become the nation’s top physician who issues public health advisories and leads the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps.
2. Committee Chair Bill Cassidy, MD, R-La., pressed Dr. Saphier on vaccines and autism, focusing on the MMR vaccine, NPR reported Sept. 16.
“I don’t know what causes autism but I have not seen reputable evidence that suggests that vaccines cause autism,” she said, a response Dr. Cassidy said left “a little bit of wiggle room.”
Dr. Saphier told the committee, “I do not believe childhood vaccines cause autism,” and said the MMR vaccine is “the best tool we have to combat these infections, to save the most lives and to also create population herd immunity,” according to NPR.
On hepatitis B, Dr. Saphier said she supports universal vaccination at birth, calling it “the most effective policy here in the United States for reducing infection” — though she stopped short of directly addressing HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s efforts to roll back the birth-dose recommendation, NPR reported.
3. Mr. Klomp, nominated to be HHS’ second-in-command, was named chief counselor at HHS in February and became a deputy of Mr. Kennedy in March. He has served as CMS’ Medicare director since April 2025.
4. Dr. Cassidy used the hearing to press Mr. Klomp on four recent measles-related deaths in Pennsylvania that Mr. Kennedy has publicly disputed and that no longer appear on the CDC’s website. Mr. Klomp defended new CDC Director Erica Schwartz, MD, but said the agency needs “a commitment to publish transparently on the website, and then a proper policy discussion or policy response” — in this case, he said, “promoting vaccination for measles,” according to NPR.
5. President Trump nominated Dr. Westlake in July to oversee the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. He is chief of staff at SAMHSA, supporting agency leadership and operations. He has more than 25 years of clinical experience in community emergency medicine and has spoken publicly about his own long-term recovery.
6. Dr. Westlake became emotional at the hearing while discussing the toll of the overdose crisis, sharing that he has nearly 30 years of personal recovery, a milestone Mr. Kennedy has also disclosed about himself, and citing children he has known who died of drug overdoses, NPR reported.
