Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, whose opposition to Covid lockdowns made him a polarizing determine throughout the pandemic, is ready to seem at a Senate affirmation listening to Wednesday to steer the Nationwide Institutes of Well being.
As director, Bhattacharya would oversee an company with a virtually $50 billion funds that’s set to endure drastic adjustments, with the Trump administration pushing for job cuts throughout the federal authorities and Well being and Human Providers Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. seeking to shift the company’s focus away from infectious illness analysis and towards continual illnesses.
The NIH is made up of 27 research institutes, every centered on their very own areas, together with most cancers, infectious illnesses and psychological well being.
In February, the administration suspended NIH opinions of recent grant purposes, stopping it from funding new analysis. The administration can be in a authorized battle over an NIH coverage that decreased oblique funding to universities — a transfer, specialists say, that could stall progress for developing lifesaving treatments.
Bhattacharya himself can be pushing for reforms, together with taking over so-called cancel tradition by linking a college’s chance of receiving analysis grants to some measure of “tutorial freedom” on their campuses, The Wall Street Journal reported.
“I’m all in favour of how somebody who’s searching for to steer an company feels concerning the important dismantling of that company,” mentioned David Supes, a professor of legislation and economics at Georgetown College Regulation Middle who has been following the administration’s transfer to reorganize the federal authorities. “I ponder why he would need to lead it.”
A Stanford College professor of medication, Bhattacharya is an “uncommon” option to run the nation’s prime medical analysis company, mentioned Jeremy Berg, a former NIH division director who oversaw basic medical analysis.
Whereas Bhattacharya is a doctor, he’s by no means accomplished any scientific coaching past medical faculty, nor has he practiced medication, Berg mentioned. Bhattacharya’s analysis primarily focuses on well being economics and well being coverage, he added.
“It’s actually not a typical background for an NIH director,” mentioned Berg, who labored on the company for nearly a decade. “They’re virtually all the time MDs, however they arrive from both a scientific analysis background or a fundamental science analysis background, and he’s in form of a unique pocket, which isn’t an unnatural match for NIH. It does do some well being economics analysis, notably the Nationwide Institute on Ageing, however the remainder of it’s not an enormous a part of the NIH portfolio.”
Bhattacharya is extra broadly generally known as one of many three lead authors of the “Great Barrington Declaration,” a 2020 open letter that known as on public well being officers to roll again Covid lockdowns. The letter argued for letting the virus unfold amongst younger, wholesome people at decrease danger of extreme sickness or loss of life, whereas defending older individuals at increased danger, with the objective of reaching herd immunity.
Through the pandemic, Bhattacharya additionally brazenly criticized how NIH management and Dr. Anthony Fauci, who headed the Nationwide Institute of Allergy and Infectious Illnesses till 2022, managed the U.S. response. He’s additionally been accused by colleagues of misrepresenting findings, together with the consequences of masking on stopping the unfold of Covid.
“Ever for the reason that Covid pandemic, Dr. Bhattacharya has expressed hostility to the company he’s slated to run,” mentioned Lawrence Gostin, the director of the World Well being Group Collaborating Middle on Nationwide and World Well being Regulation. “I believe it’s honest recreation to ask him about his deceptive statements on public well being, particularly associated to Covid.”
Bhattacharya and the White Home didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.
Bhattacharya is predicted to inform the Senate Well being, Training, Labor and Pensions (HELP) committee that he plans to determine a tradition of “scientific dissent” on the NIH, the place management will actively encourage “totally different views,” in keeping with prepared remarks obtained by Bloomberg News.
Bhattacharya already has the help of Sen. Invoice Cassidy, R-La., the chair of the Senate HELP committee. In a post on X on Feb. 20, Cassidy, who can be a doctor, mentioned Bhattacharya “has a imaginative and prescient to revive religion in medical analysis for the American individuals, defend and enhance the establishment, and higher distribute the advantages.”
Key questions on the listening to might embody whether or not Bhattacharya would help cuts to NIH, Gostin mentioned, and whether or not he would help dismissals of NIH employees, particularly scientists.
“If he does help slicing the company, which areas would he minimize? And would he oppose drastic cuts proposed by DOGE or the White Home,” mentioned Gostin, referring to Elon Musk’s Division of Authorities Effectivity. “Dr. Bhattacharya additionally must be clear as as to whether he would restructure NIH and what priorities he has for NIH sponsored analysis. Most significantly, he must be requested whether or not he helps the throughout the board cuts to NIH oblique funding. That might devastate analysis establishments, together with his personal at Stanford College.”
It’s additionally unclear whether or not he would help Kennedy’s push for shifting the NIH’s focus away from infectious illnesses and towards continual illnesses like weight problems. Consultants say Kennedy’s assertion that the company dedicates funding towards infectious illnesses on the expense of chronic disease is misleading; extra sources are already devoted to continual sickness — together with coronary heart illness, Alzheimer’s and diabetes — than infectious illnesses, and the company is able to each areas, which are sometimes intertwined.
Supes, the Georgetown professor, questioned the advantages of getting the NIH shift focus.
“The standard mandate of NIH has been to observe the science and allocate their funding in areas the place success is more than likely,” Supes mentioned. “A variety of continual illness issues are important, however primarily based on issues the place we have already got lots of data.”
