Trump FDA nominee Dr. Marty Makary faces confirmation questions
What this video covers
This is the full Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee confirmation hearing for Dr. Marty Makary, then the nominee to lead the Food and Drug Administration. Makary, a Johns Hopkins surgical oncologist and vocal critic of pandemic-era public health management, faced senators from both parties in a session that was closely watched as a signal of how the Trump administration’s health agenda would treat the FDA’s independence.
Makary’s testimony repeatedly distanced him from the agency’s recent disruptions. He told senators he had not been involved in the FDA’s decision to cancel a March meeting of its Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) on flu-strain selection, nor in the layoffs of roughly a thousand FDA employees. He promised that if confirmed, the vaccine advisory committee would continue to meet — but added he would “re-evaluate which topics deserve a convening,” declining to promise the canceled flu meeting would be rescheduled. Pressed by Patty Murray, he contrasted the canceled flu-strain rubber-stamp — seven of the last seven years mirroring an international group’s recommendation — with what he called “unconscionable” when the FDA skipped the committee for the 12-to-15 COVID booster authorization.
In his opening statement, Makary leaned on his biography: more than 300 peer-reviewed articles, a father who treated pediatric leukemia and lymphoma, and a grandfather who was a pharmacist in a poor Egyptian community. He invoked the 9-foot Jesus statue in the Johns Hopkins lobby and framed his career around a signature question: “it’s hard to perform a long, sophisticated operation for liver cancer and not ask why our rates of liver cancer tripled in the United States.” Trading anecdotes with Sen. Rand Paul, he recalled older surgeons insisting “big surgeons use big incisions” when laparoscopy arrived — his parable for medical dogma.
On food policy, Makary aligned himself squarely with the Make America Healthy Again movement’s priorities. He told the committee that food chemicals are making children sick — “We are drugging our nation’s children at scale” — and committed to examining the safety of ingredients the industry insists are safe, including the FDA’s Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) process. He also said he was in conversations with administration officials about making school meals healthier. The Senate confirmed him 56-44 on March 25, 2025, with three Democrats — Dick Durbin, Maggie Hassan, and Jeanne Shaheen — voting with all Republicans.
Key points
- Makary said he was not involved in the cancellation of the VRBPAC flu-strain meeting or in the FDA layoffs, distancing himself from both decisions while promising to assess agency staffing if confirmed.
- On vaccines oversight, he pledged VRBPAC would continue meeting but reserved the right to decide which topics require convening the committee — a non-committal stance pressed by senators including Patty Murray.
- He committed to scrutinizing food chemicals and the GRAS process, telling senators that food chemicals are one culprit behind chronic disease in children.
- On the abortion drug mifepristone, he said he would follow the safety data under its existing Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) rather than pre-committing to an outcome.
- Asked about seed oils by Sen. Tommy Tuberville, he engaged on the food-ingredient debate that figures like HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have made central to the MAHA agenda.
- Senators including Bill Cassidy framed the hearing around transparency; Makary promised the FDA would “continue the FDA’s tradition of following good science” while independent.
- The hearing’s reception was comparatively smooth — especially next to Kennedy’s January confirmation battle — and analysts such as Jefferies described Makary afterward as a “public health advocate” focused on regulatory reform and lower drug prices.