Trump’s new pick for surgeon general has been branded a “snake oil” salesman.
Former Fox News contributor Dr. Nicole Saphier has a history of selling health supplements that contain an ingredient banned in the military and several European countries, coming under fire from doctors and consumer advocates for the loosely-regulated products she sells.
She is Trump’s third pick to be America’s top doctor, after his first two failed to pass through the Senate.
Saphier’s medical background is in breast cancer, having worked as a radiologist at New Jersey’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, but her venture into the wellness industry with her liquid-herb firm, DropRX, has raised questions about her scientific rigor.
Among the 2oz dropper products she sells is one called “Calm,” which The Guardian reports contains kava kava root.
It was placed on the Pentagon’s prohibited dietary supplement ingredients list in 2024 “based on the possibility of impairment and subsequent threat to military readiness,” a Defense Department spokesperson told the newspaper.
In 2002, the Food and Drug Administration published a memo flagging possible liver damage, and it refreshed its concerns in 2020.
It is legal in the U.S., but countries including the U.K., France, and Switzerland have restricted or banned it, raising concerns about liver toxicity.
Dr. Peter Lurie of the Center for Science in the Public Interest has long railed against what he labels wellness industry “grifters” within the Make America Healthy Again movement, led by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Kennedy has been known to dabble in the conspiratorial, often favoring alternative science and challenging established norms in the medical world.
“Nobody who prides themselves as rigorous about science is in the supplement business,” Lurie told The Guardian.
Titan retailer Amazon has launched an investigation into the sale of Saphier’s products through its site, after The Guardian asked it whether her products met its policies.
“We are investigating the compliance of the products in question and will take appropriate remediation actions,” it said in a statement.
UC Riverside public policy professor and public health scientist Richard Carpiano said he thinks the products she sells are “pseudoscientific.”
“The U.S. surgeon general should be a highly trusted position as America’s health communicator, bringing to bear the best science, the scientific knowhow,” he told the newspaper. “If she’s willing to push these kinds of wellness products, what else might she push along the way?”
“Dr. Nicole Saphier is an accomplished physician who has practiced radiology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering and has been an outspoken voice on breast cancer prevention, intrusive COVID-19 mandates, the politicization of science, and the federal government’s role in America’s chronic disease epidemic,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai said in a statement.
“She will be a powerful asset for President Trump and work tirelessly to deliver on every facet of his Maha agenda.”
The previous surgeon general, Vivek Murthy, left the role alongside the Joe Biden administration in January 2025.
The Daily Beast has contacted DropRX for comment.
