Trump FDA nominee tight-lipped on whether she thinks women are contaminating America’s drinking water with birth control and abortion pills

Donald Trump‘s pick for the next Food and Drug Administration commissioner faced a grilling in front of the Senate Health Committee yesterday. Senators repeatedly asked Dr. Heidi Overton whether she agreed with various assertions from Trump on the state of the nation’s healthcare and then repeatedly dodged questions, to the committee’s visible annoyance.

At one point, Dr Overton was asked directly by Senator Maggie Hassan, “Do you think it’s possible for the president to ever be wrong about something?” Dr Overton did not give a straight answer, saying, “As I’ve shared here before, I’ve had the privilege of working for the president for over a year and a half and have had robust discussions with him.”

The question was repeated to her, but once again Dr Overton refused to admit that Donald Trump could be wrong about anything, ever. Later in the questioning, Senator Angela Alsobrooks asked whether Dr Overton agreed with the “crackpot” theory that women are contaminating America’s drinking water with birth control pills.

“Do you think it’s possible for the president to ever be wrong about something?”

Senator Alsobrooks said: “In another series of these crackpot conspiracy theories of this administration, the Environmental Protection Agency just launched a drinking water study that will test for birth control, mifepristone, and emergency contraception. Do you have any reason to believe that birth control contaminates our drinking water in our country?”

Dr Overton did not answer, instead saying, “If confirmed as FDA commissioner I will work within the FDA’s statutory requirements” and added that this question would be outside of the FDA’s jurisdiction. When pressed if she thought, as a doctor that women are contaminating America’s drinking water, Dr Overton once again did not answer.

It should be underlined that there’s no evidence whatsoever that birth control or abortion medication is contaminating the water supply (and subsequently causing a rise of infertility) despite repeated claims that it is from anti-abortion campaigners. There already has been an FDA study on this issue, and in 1996 it concluded that there was “no significant impact.”

Anna Bernstein, principal federal policy adviser at reproductive rights organization the Guttmacher Institute said (via The 19th), “This is really part of a broader effort to restrict access to medication abortion” and that accusations that abortion is affecting drinking water are anti-abortion campaigners turning “every lever they can” to muddy the waters.

Berstein concluded that these conspiracy theories are creating “a culture of surveillance around medication abortion at a time when that is already increasing, and folks, especially in banned states, are facing increasing fear of criminalization. There are concerns whether it will be eventually used for the criminalization of patients, in addition to creating a broader restriction of mifepristone and perpetuating these myths.”