Trump picks Dr. Heidi Overton, a top White House aide, to lead FDA

Dr. Heidi Overton, a top White House aide, has been picked to lead the Food and Drug Administration, President Donald Trump announced Wednesday.

As a medical doctor and deputy director of the White House Domestic Policy Council who has worked on several of Trump’s second-term health initiatives, Overton has become a trusted figure in his administration and a champion of the Republican president’s goals.

Yet any new FDA commissioner will have to balance a raft of competing priorities, between Trump’s fixations, the anti-regulatory interests of traditional Republicans and the anti-corporate posture of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Those challenges dogged the tenure of the previous FDA head, Dr. Marty...