In a narrow 12-11 vote split along party lines, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee on Thursday advanced the nomination of Dr. Jay Bhattacharya to become the next director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). With all Republicans voting in favor, the nomination now heads to the full Senate for a floor vote, marking a significant step in Bhattacharya’s journey from ostracized academic to potential leader of one of the nation’s premier scientific institutions.
Bhattacharya’s nomination, announced on the heels of his election in November 2024 by President Donald Trump, reignited debate over his role during the pandemic, where he emerged as a vocal critic of lockdowns, mask mandates, and vaccine mandates.
If confirmed, Dr. Bhattacharya would oversee the sprawling institution within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services led by recently-confirmed Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
With a budget of about $47 billion annually, the role involves setting the scientific agenda for 27 institutes and centers, funding research into diseases ranging from cancer to infectious outbreaks, and shaping national health policy through grants and partnerships with universities and private entities. The director manages a workforce of over 18,000 employees, ensures compliance with federal regulations, and represents the NIH to Congress, the public, and the global scientific community.
A Scholar Under Siege
Five years ago, Bhattacharya found himself at the center of a firestorm when he published a 2020 study suggesting that COVID-19 was more widespread – but less deadly – than feared. The paper challenged the prevailing narrative and sparked a fierce backlash. Colleagues at Stanford University, where he taught for decades, accused him of spreading misinformation. The university’s head of medicine ordered him to cease media interactions, while an ad hoc investigation sought to derail his research. “It was a low period in my life,” Bhattacharya recalled in a 2023 interview. “I was getting death threats, racist attacks, because the press was attacking me.”
The attacks escalated when Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Francis Collins, then-NIH director, publicly dismissed Bhattacharya and his co-authors as “fringe epidemiologists.” Emails uncovered via a Freedom of Information Act request revealed Collins urging a “quick and devastating published takedown” of the Great Barrington Declaration — a 2020 proposal Bhattacharya co-authored with Harvard’s Dr. Martin Kulldorff and Oxford’s Dr. Sunetra Gupta advocating “focused protection” over broad lockdowns. Fauci and Collins enlisted allies like Yale’s Gregg Gonsalves, who wrote essays in The Nation and The Washington Post attacking Bhattacharya personally while sidestepping his scientific arguments.”
The smears continued. A 2021 BMJ article by Duke’s Gavin Yamey and Wayne State’s David Gorski falsely linked Bhattacharya to “dark money” from the Charles Koch Foundation via the American Institute for Economic Research, which hosted the Declaration’s drafting. No evidence supported the claim, yet the narrative stuck, amplified by academics and media outlets like Buzzfeed, which ran now-discredited stories alleging undisclosed funding.
Vindication and lingering scars
In the years since, many of Bhattacharya’s critiques on lockdown efficacy, mask mandates, and inflated fatality fears have gained scientific traction. Meanwhile, Fauci, who accepted a pardon from President Biden for COVID-related actions dating back to 2014, and Collins, who abruptly resigned from NIH in October 2021, have faced scrutiny over their roles in funding gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, now widely suspected as the pandemic’s origin.
Bhattacharya’s nomination marks a striking turnaround for the once-maligned scientist. “Science simply cannot function without free speech,” he wrote in a 2023 article for The Free Press, encapsulating a belief forged through years of battling censorship.
Bhattacharya reiterated his stance in his remarks to the HELP Committee, saying he will purge the NIH of careerists who suppressed dissent and to restore public trust in American science. “I’ll establish a culture of respect for free speech in science and scientific dissent at the NIH,” he said.
“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. Dissent is the very essence of science. I’ll foster a culture where NIH leadership will actively encourage different perspectives and create environment where scientists, including early-career scientists and scientists that disagree with me can express disagreement respectfully,” Bhattacharya told the committee Wednesday, a week ago.
Supporters, including former CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield, see his resilience as a strength. “If you survive these attacks, you do very well,” Redfield said. “ I’m pretty confident he’ll do well, move forward, and do the right thing,” he told RealClearInvestigations.
Critics, however, remain unswayed. Shortly after Trump’s nomination in November 2024, Columbia University’s Lucky Tran called Bhattacharya a purveyor of “disinformation” backed by “dark money,” echoing old charges without evidence. Columbia did not respond to requests by RealClearInvestigations to clarify Tran’s claims. Tran’s criticisms of Bhattacharya persist.
Democrats, who opposed Bhattacharya in committee, argue his skepticism of pandemic measures disqualifies him from leading the NIH. Republicans see him as a much-needed reformer poised to challenge entrenched interests. For Bhattacharya, the stakes are personal as much as professional. “I am honored and humbled by President Trump’s nomination,” he posted on X at the time. “We will reform American scientific institutions so that they are worthy of trust again.”
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Christina Botteri is the Executive Editor at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network.
Image “Senate HELP Committee Vote” by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee.
