Trump’s third SG nominee brings predictable controversy: Who is Nicole Saphier, MD?
Industry Buzz
A lot better to have a currently practicing physician be the Surgeon General than one who isn't. A major blow to MAHA and RFK Jr., who wanted [Casey] Means.
—Internal medicine physician @ddx-me via Reddit
Selling supplements is a massive negative prognostic indicator. Basically a death sentence for integrity.
—@Deep_Stick8786, OB/GYN, via Reddit
President Donald Trump has selected radiologist and Fox News contributor Nicole Saphier, MD, as his latest nominee for US surgeon general, ending a prolonged and politically fraught nomination process previously centered on Casey Means.[]
Critics expressed alarm over Means’s unconventional path to the nomination, citing her promotion of alternative treatments, vaccine skepticism, and lack of an active medical license.[] Supporters, on the other hand, praised Means’s focus on holistic and functional medicine.
Related: A 'grifter,' a 'wellness influencer,' a 'superb choice': Docs fiercely divided on US Surgeon General nomineeWho's the new nominee?
News of Trump’s new nomination arrives with predictable controversy.
Dr. Saphier, a radiologist affiliated with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, has built a national profile as a communicator of medical issues to lay audiences (for better or worse).
In 2020, she published a book titled “Make America Healthy Again: How Bad Behavior and Big Government Caused a Trillion-Dollar Crisis.”[] HHS Health Secretary RFK would adopt the phrase as a slogan for his healthcare agenda.
In the book, Dr. Saphier cites “individual negligence” and “big government incompetence” as key contributors to problems in the US healthcare system, arguing that policies such as the Affordable Care Act and single-payer health plans are unnecessary when people keep healthy habits.
Dr. Saphier is also the author of “Panic Attack: Playing Politics with Science in the Fight Against COVID-19,” a 2021 book in which she posits that America’s pandemic response—including face masks, school closures, and media coverage of the origin of the COVID-19 virus—politicized science in the name of “knee-jerk anti-Trumpism.”[]
Similar to what drew major controversy to Means, some doctors consider Dr. Saphier another “grifter/wellness influencer,” as she’s the founder of an herbal supplement brand DropRx.
"Selling supplements is a massive negative prognostic indicator," said @Deep_Stick8786, an OB/GYN. "Basically a death sentence for integrity."
Positions on health policy
However, Dr. Saphier’s support for the MAHA movement is not unconditional. When Trump claimed in 2025 that use of Tylenol during pregnancy was linked to autism, Dr. Saphier told Fox News Radio that there was “no new evidence” of causation.[]
In a March episode of her podcast, "Wellness Unmasked," Dr. Saphier explained that mixed messaging from HHS and the CDC is fueling vaccine hesitancy and driving down vaccination rates, and called for clear and consistent communication about vaccines from health leaders.[]
In 2022, Dr. Saphier falsely claimed that the CDC was mandating that school children receive COVID-19 vaccines, a decision that rests with state and local jurisdictions.[]
“This nominee at least has no glaring, immediate, unforgivable red flags. Just some small ones,” writes @PokeTheVeil, a psychiatrist. “Low-grade grift. It’s a low bar, but clearing that has been hard for this administration.”
Trump indicated that Means will remain involved in health policy discussions, particularly around chronic disease, childhood illness, and fertility—areas that continue to generate bipartisan attention, though often with differing proposed solutions.