The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee voted 12-11 along party lines Wednesday to advance Dr. Nicole Saphier's nomination for U.S. surgeon general, sending President Trump's third pick for the post to the full Senate after two previous nominees collapsed before ever getting a committee vote.

No Democrats crossed over to support her. Saphier, a breast radiologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center Monmouth in New Jersey and a former Fox News medical contributor, is Trump's replacement pick after he pulled the nomination of "Make America Healthy Again" figure Casey Means in April when her confirmation stalled, following an earlier withdrawal of nominee Janette Nesheiwat.

Vaccines were the sticking point

At her September 16 confirmation hearing, Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana pressed Saphier on whether she believed vaccines cause autism — a question that has sunk vaccine-skeptical nominees across the Trump health team. She told the panel she does "not believe childhood vaccines cause autism" and called the MMR shot "our greatest tool for combating measles," reassurances Cassidy and other Republicans on the fence appeared to accept.

"WHEN SOMEBODY IS WILLING TO BE HONEST TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE AND SAY THAT VACCINES ARE SAFE, YOU SHOULD BE TAKING IT... WHAT ELSE CAN YOU ASK FOR?" — Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.)

Trump has praised Saphier as "an INCREDIBLE COMMUNICATOR, who makes complicated health issues more easily understood by all Americans," and allies note she has echoed Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s push against ultraprocessed foods and food additives while breaking with the MAHA movement's harder vaccine skepticism.

Not everyone is satisfied. According to the Washington Examiner's reporting on the vote, committee Democrats declined to back her despite her vaccine answers. Reproductive-rights group Reproductive Freedom for All blasted the advance, saying Saphier "has repeatedly pushed anti-abortion disinformation and supports medically unnecessary restrictions on access to medication abortion," and that her "anti-abortion extremism has no place in the Surgeon General's office."

The nomination now heads to the full Senate, where no confirmation vote date has been set. With Republicans holding the majority, Saphier is broadly expected to be confirmed barring defections — the same math that doomed her predecessors only after they lost GOP votes, not Democratic ones. The surgeon general post has sat vacant for the entirety of Trump's second term while three straight nominees have run the confirmation gauntlet.