What Trump's new surgeon general nominee has said about vaccines, cancer

Dr. Nicole Saphier is President Donald Trump's new pick for U.S. surgeon general, so we're looking into what she's said on different health topics.

Trump's former nominee, Dr. Casey Means, faced opposition from the Senate over her lack of current medical license and vaccine views, leading to a stalled confirmation.

Saphier is a breast radiologist who has served as a Fox News contributor. She is the director of breast imaging at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center-Monmouth and an associate professor at Weill Cornell Medical College, specializing in breast and oncologic imaging.

In addition to her medical roles, Saphier also includes the title "farmer" in her Instagram bio and shares posts to social media about gardening and keeping chickens.

She's also promoted wellness tincture brand Drop RX on her social media. A disclosure of her involvement with the company is listed on her Memorial Sloan Kettering bio page.

Here's what she's said about a range of health topics.

Nicole Saphier on vaccines

Saphier has shared mixed views on vaccines, blaming the Biden administration, not Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. or Trump, for the public's vaccine distrust during a September 2025 radio segment.

On claims about vaccines causing cancer or autism, she explained that evidence linking vaccines directly to either is limited and inconclusive. Most leading health organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics and the World Health Organization, deny any link. She emphasized the importance of measles and polio shots while questioning mandates for hepatitis B and certain boosters.

Speaking on her podcast "Wellness Unmasked," she spoke about her "old friend and colleague from Fox News" Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth stopping the flu vaccine mandate for the military.

Her take? "Some will call it a win for medical autonomy, others will say it puts readiness at risk − and as usual, the truth, it's definitely somewhere in between and definitely more nuanced than that," she said.

She added that she pushes for more "risk-based [vaccine] recommendations versus one-size-fits all," adding she became more vocal about this during COVID.

Nicole Saphier on cancer

As a radiologist specializing in breast and body imaging, she uses a "variety of imaging techniques to achieve the best cancer care for my patients," she writes in her Memorial Sloan Kettering bio.

"I am experienced in performing minimally invasive, image-guided procedures of the breast, kidney, pancreas, liver, thyroid and lymph nodes. These procedures can help patients avoid surgery to diagnose or manage their cancer," the bio adds.

While announcing her nomination on Truth Social, Trump wrote she has "spent her career guiding women facing breast cancer through their diagnosis and treatment while tirelessly advocating to increase early cancer detection and prevention, while at the same time working with men and women on all other forms of cancer diagnoses and treatments."

Nicole Saphier on mental health

In one segment of her podcast "Wellness Unmasked," Saphier recognized the seriousness of mental health and its connection to physical health.

She noted that, while some underplay mental health challenges, they can lead to actual physiological changes. She used stress as an example of how that can raise cortisol levels and inflammation.

In a segment on Fox News, she said one driver of child mental illness is being raised in unstable or nontraditional households, including statements that critics say echo rhetoric targeting transgender people and are not supported by scientific research.

Nicole Saphier on the new dietary guidelines

Saphier has promoted the new dietary guidelines set forth by Kennedy earlier in the year.

In a Fox News segment in January, she also praised Trump's "Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act," saying, "hallelujah for bringing common sense back when it comes to milk and our children."

Experts say the biggest potential pitfall of too much full-fat dairy is its high fat content. Only 10% of your calories a day should come from saturated fats, a percentage easy to meet or surpass through dairy consumption alone, according to Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Contributing: Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy and Mary Walrath-Holdridge

This story has been updated with new information.