The entire Senate confirmed the election of President Donald Trump on Tuesday evening to lead National Institutes of Health (NIH) Dr. Jay Bhatacharya.
The party’s votes voted in line with party’s policy to advance Bhatacharya, following approval by the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, leading to today’s Senate vote.
Bhatacharya, a doctor, professor of medicine at Stanford and senior fellow at the University Institute of Economic Policy, was the key voice during the Covid-19 pandemic against lockdown measures and vaccine orders. He was one of the co-authors of the great Barrington Declaration. This is a document published in October 2020 by a group of scientists who argued against a widespread Covid lockdown and promoted the efficacy of innate immunity against low-risk individuals in contrast to vaccination.
Trump NIH appointees defend the president’s cuts in research funding and lay out a new vision for the future
Bhatacharya, a doctor, professor of medicine at Stanford and senior fellow at the University Institute of Economic Policy, was the key voice during the Covid-19 pandemic against lockdown measures and vaccine orders. (Getty Images)
Bhattacharya was investigated earlier this month by the Senate Aid Committee on various issues related to his potential role as NIH director. However, he was forced to defend the president’s decision to cut certain research funds at the NIH, including a 15% cap on indirect research costs, also known as facility and management costs, distributed by the NIH.
Bhattacharya never explicitly said that he opposed the cut or that if it was confirmed, he would intervene to them to stop them. Rather, he said he would “follow the law,” but also said he would investigate the impact of the cut and ensure that all NIH researchers who advance American health outcomes have the necessary resources.
“I think transparency on indirect costs is absolutely worth it. That can be corrected by the university by working together to clarify where the university is going,” Bhatacharya said of the indirect costs of going to NIH universities, hospitals and research clinics.
Trump retracts Biden-era policies that declare a “essential” part of the scientific process
President Donald Trump’s candidate to become Director of the National Institutes of Health Jayanta Bhatacharya will speak at his confirmation hearing in Washington, D.C., on March 5, 2025, before Capitol Hill’s Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. (Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
In addition to addressing questions about Trump’s cuts, Bhatacharya laid out what he calls a new, decentralized vision for future research at the NIH, aimed at adopting dissent and transparency, focusing on research topics that have the best chance of directly benefiting American health outcomes. Bhattacharya added that he would like to remove the research portfolio of other “frivolous” efforts agents who say he does little to benefit directly from health outcomes.
“What’s fundamentally important is that scientists have the idea of advancing the scientific field they are in?” Bhattacharya said last week in a confirmation testimony. “Do they have ideas that are supposed to address American health needs?”
Jayanta Bhattacharya testified at the U.S. Senate Committee on Education, Labor and Pensions on March 5, 2025, Washington, DC’s National Institutes of Health (NIH) appointment.
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Before confirmation, Bhatacharya has launched a new research journal focusing on the spurt of scientific discourse and the fight against “gatekeeping” in the medical research community, several other scientists, including Trump’s election, which leads the Food and Drug Administration. The journal is The Journal of the Academy of Public Health (JAPH), which aims to promote scientific discourse by publishing peer reviews of prominent research from other journals that do not publish peer reviews.
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