President Donald Trump’s choice to lead the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Johns Hopkins School of Medicine professor Dr. Marty Makary, cleared a key vote in the Senate on Tuesday, the last such test before his final confirmation vote. 

The Senate voted 56-44 to invoke cloture on the nomination. 

A final vote to confirm the FDA nominee is slated for after 8 p.m. Tuesday. 

Makary, a former Fox News medical contributor, went before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) earlier this month and answered various questions on vaccines, chronic illness, food safety and abortion. 

During his hearing, the nominee faced scrutiny over an FDA vaccine meeting that was reportedly postponed at the last minute. 

‘So if you are confirmed, will you commit to immediately reschedule that FDA Vaccine Advisory Committee meeting to get the expert views?’ Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., asked Makary at the time. 

He responded that he ‘would reevaluate which topics deserve a convening of the advisory committee members on [Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee] and which may not require a convening.’ 

When this response wasn’t good enough for Murray, Makary flipped the question, telling her to confront the Biden administration. ‘Well, you can ask the Biden administration that chose not to convene the committee meeting for the COVID vaccine booster,’ he said. 

He was referring to the Biden administration in 2021 pushing through FDA approval for a COVID-19 booster for everyone over the age of 18. 

‘The FDA did not hold a meeting of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee on these actions,’ read a press release at the time, ‘as the agency previously convened the committee for extensive discussions regarding the use of booster doses of COVID-19 vaccines and, after review of both Pfizer’s and Moderna’s EUA requests, the FDA concluded that the requests do not raise questions that would benefit from additional discussion by committee members.’

Committee member Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, criticized the administration’s move, saying, ‘We’re being asked to approve this as a three-dose vaccine for people 16 years of age and older, without any clear evidence if the third dose for a younger person when compared to an elderly person is of value.’

Makary has long been a critic of the administration he is poised to lead. He wrote an opinion piece in 2021, calling for ‘fresh leadership at the FDA to change the culture at the agency and promote scientific advancement, not hinder it.’

‘We now have a generational opportunity in American healthcare,’ he said at his hearing. ‘President Trump and Secretary Kennedy’s focus on healthy foods has galvanized a grassroots movement in America. Childhood obesity is not a willpower problem, and the rise of early-onset Alzheimer’s is not a genetic cause. We should be, and we will, be addressing food as it impacts our health.’

President Donald Trump’s choice to lead the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Johns Hopkins School of Medicine professor Dr. Marty Makary, was confirmed in the Senate on Tuesday.

His confirmation was cemented just hours after he cleared one last procedural test vote earlier in the evening. 

The Senate voted 56-44 to invoke cloture on the nomination prior to his final confirmation.

Makary, a former Fox News medical contributor, went before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) earlier this month and answered various questions on vaccines, chronic illness, food safety and abortion. 

During his hearing, the nominee faced scrutiny over an FDA vaccine meeting that was reportedly postponed at the last minute. 

‘So if you are confirmed, will you commit to immediately reschedule that FDA Vaccine Advisory Committee meeting to get the expert views?’ Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., asked Makary at the time. 

He responded that he ‘would reevaluate which topics deserve a convening of the advisory committee members on [Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee] and which may not require a convening.’ 

When this response wasn’t good enough for Murray, Makary flipped the question, telling her to confront the Biden administration. ‘Well, you can ask the Biden administration that chose not to convene the committee meeting for the COVID vaccine booster,’ he said. 

He was referring to the Biden administration in 2021 pushing through FDA approval for a COVID-19 booster for everyone over the age of 18. 

‘The FDA did not hold a meeting of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee on these actions,’ read a press release at the time, ‘as the agency previously convened the committee for extensive discussions regarding the use of booster doses of COVID-19 vaccines and, after review of both Pfizer’s and Moderna’s EUA requests, the FDA concluded that the requests do not raise questions that would benefit from additional discussion by committee members.’

Committee member Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, criticized the administration’s move, saying, ‘We’re being asked to approve this as a three-dose vaccine for people 16 years of age and older, without any clear evidence if the third dose for a younger person when compared to an elderly person is of value.’

Makary has long been a critic of the administration he will now lead. He wrote an opinion piece in 2021, calling for ‘fresh leadership at the FDA to change the culture at the agency and promote scientific advancement, not hinder it.’

‘We now have a generational opportunity in American healthcare,’ he said at his hearing. ‘President Trump and Secretary Kennedy’s focus on healthy foods has galvanized a grassroots movement in America. Childhood obesity is not a willpower problem, and the rise of early-onset Alzheimer’s is not a genetic cause. We should be, and we will, be addressing food as it impacts our health.’

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., has lingering questions about President Donald Trump’s Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) nominee, Dr. Mehmet Oz, and his past stances on transgender treatments for minors and abortion, and he says the nominee hasn’t answered his inquiries. 

The Missouri Republican told Fox News Digital in an interview that he remains concerned by Oz’s past of ‘promoting transgender surgeries for minors, promoting transgender hormone treatments and puberty blockers for minors.’

He submitted a number of questions to Oz on the subjects earlier in the month, but Hawley said Oz never answered. ‘He hasn’t. Which I think is strange,’ he said. 

‘I’m hoping that he’s changed his views,’ Hawley added. ‘I’d like to hear from him that he is in total alignment with President Trump, who has been tremendously strong on this.’

In a statement to Fox News Digital, White House spokesman Kush Desai said, ‘Every member of the Trump administration is working from the same playbook, President Trump’s playbook, to restore commonsense policies and put an end to left-wing ideological nonsense afflicting our government.’

‘We look forward to the Senate’s swift confirmation of Dr. Oz so he can join the rest of our all-star team at HHS working to Make America Healthy Again by restoring common sense, transparency, and confidence in our healthcare apparatus.’

As Hawley noted, Oz has used his television show to platform people who supported and promoted transgender treatments, particularly for minors. 

Oz hosted two transgender children on his show in 2010 in a segment titled, ‘Transgender Kids: Too Young to Decide?’ 

Josie, 8, and the child’s mother, Vanessia, claimed that Josie’s life improved once the male-born child began embracing a feminine lifestyle. Isaac, who was 15, and the minor’s parents, Arturo and Monica, revealed that they decided to let their female-born teenager begin taking puberty blockers and have the teenager’s breasts removed in a double mastectomy. 

The segment was touted as ‘groundbreaking’ by LGBTQ activist group GLAAD, which told supporters to thank Oz. 

The television doctor has also had a history of supporting abortion. 

In a 2019 interview on popular radio show ‘The Breakfast Club,’ Oz said he was concerned by state laws aimed at restricting or limiting abortion, saying it’s ‘a hard issue for everybody.’

And while on ‘a personal level,’ he didn’t like abortion, he also believed he should not ‘interfere with everyone else’s stuff.’ 

‘Because it’s hard enough to get into life as it is,’ he added. 

When Oz ran for Senate in Pennsylvania as a Republican in 2022, he still opposed government jurisdiction on the subject of abortion. 

‘I don’t want the federal government involved with that at all,’ he said during a debate with now-Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa. ‘I want women, doctors, local political leaders, letting the democracy that’s always allowed our nation to thrive, to put the best ideas forward, so states can decide for themselves.’

Asked whether he would vote to confirm Oz even without answers to his questions, Hawley wouldn’t say. ‘I just have to believe that he will respond here.’

The full Senate voted Tuesday evening to confirm President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Dr. Jay Bhattacharya.

The party-line vote followed approval from the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, which also voted along party lines to advance Bhattacharya, leading to today’s full Senate vote.  

A physician, Stanford professor of medicine and senior fellow at the university’s Institute for Economic Policy Research, Bhattacharya was a leading voice during the COVID-19 pandemic against lockdown measures and vaccine mandates. 

He was one of the co-authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, a document published in October 2020 by a group of scientists advocating against widespread COVID lockdowns and promoting the efficacy of natural immunity for low-risk individuals as opposed to vaccination.

Bhattacharya was probed by the Senate HELP Committee earlier this month over various issues related to his potential role as NIH director. However, for much of the hearing, he was forced to defend the president’s decision to cut certain research funds at NIH, including a 15% cap on indirect research costs, also known as facilities and administrative costs, dispersed by the NIH.

Bhattacharya would not explicitly say he disagreed with the cuts, or that, if confirmed, he would step in to stop them. Rather, he said he would ‘follow the law,’ while also investigating the effect of the cuts and ensuring every NIH researcher doing work that advances the health outcomes of Americans has the resources necessary.

‘I think transparency regarding indirect costs is absolutely worthwhile. It’s something that universities can fix by working together to make sure that where that money goes is made clear,’ Bhattacharya said of the indirect costs going to universities, hospitals and research clinics from the NIH. 

In addition to addressing questions about the Trump cuts, Bhattacharya also laid out what he called a new, decentralized vision for future research at NIH that he said will be aimed at embracing dissenting ideas and transparency, while focusing on research topics that have the best chance at directly benefiting health outcomes of Americans. Bhattacharya added that he wants to rid the agency’s research portfolio of other ‘frivolous’ efforts that he says do little to directly benefit health outcomes.

‘I think fundamentally what matters is do scientists have an idea that advances the scientific field they’re in?’ Bhattacharya said last week during his confirmation testimony. ‘Do they have an idea that ends up addressing the health needs of Americans?’

Prior to his confirmation, Bhattacharya, alongside several other scientists, including Trump’s pick to head the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Marty Makary, launched a new research journal focused on spurring scientific discourse and combating ‘gatekeeping’ in the medical research community. The journal, the Journal of the Academy of Public Health (JAPH), aims to spur scientific discourse by publishing peer reviews of prominent studies from other journals that do not make their peer reviews publicly available.