Dr Nicole Saphier is facing a Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday. Photograph: John Lamparski/Getty ImagesView image in fullscreenDr Nicole Saphier is facing a Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday. Photograph: John Lamparski/Getty ImagesUS surgeon general nominee made $270,000 from supplement companyTobacco investments raise new concerns about Dr Nicole Saphier ahead of confirmation hearing
Donald Trump’s nominee for US surgeon general reported more than $200,000 in business income from a company she owns that sells dietary supplements, a loosely regulated industry that health and consumer advocates say raises concerns about her record and which some critics allege are akin to “snake oil”.
Dr Nicole Saphier, who specializes in breast cancer as a radiologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New Jersey and was formerly a Fox News contributor, is facing a Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday. She filed a financial disclosure and ethics agreement last week.
In them, Saphier also reported extensive investments in other industries that have a bearing on Americans’ health, including tobacco. US surgeons general have warned repeatedly about the dangers of tobacco in dozens of reports since the 1960s.
Saphier also listed investments in pharmaceutical and healthcare companies, technology, fossil fuel and food companies including Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and McDonald’s.
The filings show Saphier made substantial income from her company Empower MD, LLC, which owns her supplement line, Drop RX. She reported that she received $270,605 in business income from Empower MD and placed the company’s value in a range of $100,001 – $250,000. She said she would sell the company before assuming the duties of surgeon general.
The Guardian previously reported that Saphier’s company had sold at least nine formulations under the brand name Drop RX since at least 2024 and promoted the products multiple times on her Instagram account. The company sold several of the 2-ounce liquid formulations on Amazon, packaged in glass bottles with a dropper. While most are no longer available for sale this week, at least one – a blend that includes turmeric and ginger root and marketed under the name “Soothe” – was being sold for $24.99 as of Monday.
A White House spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. Spokesman Kush Desai previously said that 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.” He said she would be a “powerful asset for President Trump and work tirelessly to deliver on every facet of his Maha agenda”.
Empower MD did not respond to emails seeking comment.
Public health advocates have raised concern about Dr Saphier’s supplement business. One of Drop RX’s products includes kava kava root, which is listed as a prohibited dietary supplement by the US military. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has expressed concerns about liver damage associated with kava use and in 2020 published a 29-page review of the scientific literature in which it highlighted safety concerns about it.
“The question is what kind of person invests in supplements or runs a supplement company in the first place” given that such products are not known for being supported by rigorous scientific research, said Dr Peter Lurie, of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. Lurie has been an outspoken critic of the wellness industry and what he has called “grifters” selling supplements in health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr’s Make America Healthy Again (Maha) movement.
But more concerning, Lurie said, was Saphier’s investments in tobacco. Saphier reported that both she and her husband hold investments in the tobacco company Philip Morris International, while her husband owns shares of British American Tobacco Industries. In an ethics agreement, Saphier wrote that she would divest her interests in both companies within 90 days of her confirmation.
Lurie said it was unimaginable that someone could be surgeon general who had tied their own financial interests to increased sales of a product that the surgeon general’s office itself had declared deadly.
“No public health person worth their salt would put a penny in a tobacco company,” Lurie said. “It ought to be an automatic exclusion from a position of such responsibility.”
Saphier is Trump’s third pick for the job after his first two failed to advance in the Senate.
