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Jay Bhattacharya vows to tackle chronic disease
Bhattacharya, a Stanford University professor who was a vocal critic of COVID-19 lockdowns, is expected to be confirmed for the role. His five key goals also include supporting innovative biomedical research and regulating high-risk studies.
The National Institutes of Health is shown in Bethesda, Maryland October 16, 2014. REUTERS/Gary Cameron/File Photo / Reuters
President Donald Trump's nominee to lead the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, told a U.S. Senate panel he plans to focus the agency on chronic diseases, improve research integrity, and foster scientific dissent.
Bhattacharya, a Stanford University professor who was a vocal critic of COVID-19 lockdowns, is expected to be confirmed for the role. His five key goals also include supporting innovative biomedical research and regulating high-risk studies.
"American health is going backwards," Bhattacharya told the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, citing rising rates of obesity, diabetes, and chronic illnesses.
He also waded into the debate being fueled by his likely future boss, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose response to a growing measles outbreak in Texas has underscored his decades-long anti-vaccine views.
Committee chairman Senator Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican and physician, questioned Bhattacharya over his stance on investigating a potential link between autism and childhood vaccinations, an issue long debunked by scientific evidence that had been embraced by Kennedy.
"I don't generally believe there is a link, based on my reading of the literature," Bhattacharya said. "But we do have a sharp rise in autism rates, and I don't think any scientist really knows the cause of it. I would support a broad scientific agenda based on data to get an answer to that."
Cassidy pushed back, emphasizing that the alleged connection between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism has been exhaustively studied and disproven.
"If we keep plowing over ground that has already been plowed, we waste limited resources," Cassidy said. "We have a responsibility to address real health concerns, like chronic disease, rather than appease misinformation."
A growing measles outbreak in Texas, in which one unvaccinated child has died and nearly 20 others have been hospitalized with serious complications, marks the first major test for Kennedy, a longtime vaccine skeptic.
"It's a tragedy that a child would die from a vaccine-preventable disease," Bhattacharya said. "I fully support children being vaccinated for diseases like measles that can be prevented with vaccination efforts."
COVID CRITIC
Once confirmed by the full Senate, Bhattacharya will lead the nation's premier medical research agency, overseeing a nearly $50 billion budget and funding for thousands of scientific projects.
He is set to face immediate challenges, including legal battles over Trump's proposed cuts to federal research funding. A federal judge last month temporarily blocked the cuts.
Bhattacharya gained prominence as a leading critic of lockdowns and widespread COVID-19 restrictions. He co-authored the 2020 Great Barrington Declaration, advocating "focused protection" for the vulnerable while reopening society.
He later sued the government, claiming officials pressured social media to censor his views.
His positions often clash with mainstream public health leaders whom he argues suppress dissenting views.
"Over the last few years, top NIH officials oversaw a culture of cover-up, obfuscation, and a lack of tolerance for ideas that differed from theirs," he said on Mar. 5.
The NIH has long been in Kennedy's crosshairs, and Democrats pressed Bhattacharya on the recent and any planned future cuts to agency staffing, part of Trump and billionaire adviser Elon Musk's firing of thousands of federal employees as they shrink the U.S. federal bureaucracy.
Bhattacharya said that if confirmed, he would assess funding allocations and work to ensure research efforts continued.
Democratic U.S. Senator Patty Murray from Washington challenged him on the administration's push to cap indirect NIH grant costs at 15 percent. "Stanford, your own institution, would lose about $160 million annually," she said.
Bhattacharya acknowledged that indirect costs funding support critical infrastructure, but called for greater transparency. "People distrust how that money is used," he said.
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