The entire Senate voted Tuesday night to confirm President Donald Trump’s draft pick, leading the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Dr. Jay Bhattacharya.
Partisan votes follow Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee approval, which is also Voting along the party Advancing Bhattacharya leads to today’s Senate vote.
Bhattacharya is a doctor at the University’s Institute of Economic Policy, a professor of medicine and senior fellow at Stanford University, whose mission to oppose lockdown measures and vaccines is the leading voice during the Covid-19-19 pandemic.
He is one of the co-authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, a document published in October 2020 by a group of scientists advocating against widespread co-lockdowns and promoting the effectiveness of natural immunity in low-risk individuals rather than vaccination.
Trump NIH appointee defends president’s research funding cuts, presents new vision for the future
Bhattacharya is a doctor at the University’s Institute of Economic Policy, a professor of medicine and senior fellow at Stanford University, whose mission to oppose lockdown measures and vaccines is the leading voice during the Covid-19-19 pandemic. (Getty Image)
Earlier this month, the Senate Help Committee investigated Bhattacharya to understand various issues related to his potential role as a NIH director. However, during most hearings, he was forced to defend the president’s decision to cut certain research funds at NIH, including The upper limit of 15% of indirect research costs, Also known as facility and administrative costs, dispersed by NIH.
Bhattacharya would not explicitly say he disagrees with the cuts, or if confirmed, he would step in to stop them. Instead, he said he would “comply with the law” while also investigating the effects of the cuts and ensuring that every NIH researcher is engaged in the work of promoting American health outcomes with the necessary resources.
“I think the transparency about the indirect costs is absolutely worth it. It’s something that universities can solve by working together to make sure that the money is clear,” Bhattacharya said of the overhead costs at NIH.
Trump revokes Biden-era policy, dei is part of the scientific process
President Donald Trump’s National Institutes of Health Director nominee Jayanta Bhattacharya speaks at a confirmation hearing for the Capitol Hill Health, Education, Labor and Pension Commission in Washington, DC on March 5, 2025 (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
In addition to addressing issues regarding cutting Trump, Batacharia elaborates on what he calls a new, fragmented vision for the future NIH research He said it will aim to embrace dissenting ideas and transparency while focusing on research topics that have the best chance to benefit American health outcomes directly. Bhattacharya added that he wanted to get rid of the agency’s research portfolio to make other “reckless” efforts, which he said were taken with little to no action for direct benefit to health outcomes.
“I think fundamentally, is the idea of scientists developing the idea of the field of science they are in?” Bhattacharya said in confirmation testimony last week. “They had an idea and finally solved it Health needs American? ”
Jayanta Bhattacharya testified while in the U.S.; the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee heard his nomination as Director of the National Institutes of Health on Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C. on March 5, 2025. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Image)
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Prior to confirmation, Bhattacharya joined several other scientists, including Trump’s draft pick, in charge of the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Marty Makary, New research journal launched Focus on stimulating scientific discourse and cracking down on “gatekeepers” in the medical research community. The journal Journal of the School of Public Health (JAPH) aims to stimulate scientific discourse by publishing famous research reviews in other journals that do not provide peer reviews publicly.
