NIH head Bhattacharya dismisses criticism over funding delay as ‘political noise’

Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health and acting head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, sought to reassure lawmakers Tuesday that federal funding of scientific research is back on track.

Although Congress approved funding for the NIH in January — defying President Donald Trump’s push to decrease the agency’s budget — the White House Office of Management and Budget has placed restrictions on its spending.

The NIH has lagged behind in funding new or competitive grants compared to previous years despite appropriations for the current fiscal year, STAT reported, citing Johns Hopkins researchers.

“My job is to make sure every single dollar goes out, and it will go out by the end of the year on excellent science,” Bhattacharya told the House Appropriations Subcommittee, dismissing criticism of funding delays. “A lot of the concerns just seem like political noise to me. It’s not reality.”

Bhattacharya also said the NIH is addressing staffing shortages.

“We have a hiring plan to make sure that all of the holes we identified are filled this year and we’re working as hard as we can to fill those,” he said.

Bhattacharya — who has both a medical degree and a Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University — took over the CDC in February from Jim O’Neill, a Silicon Valley figure with no formal public health or medical experience. He was previously a strident critic of the CDC during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Tuesday hearing was far less contentious than has been typical for other members of the Trump administration.

Bhattacharya, who last month told members of a Senate committee that he had not seen proof that vaccines cause autism, testified Tuesday that falling vaccination rates for children are due to distrust in public health. (His boss, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has been a leading voice in vaccine skepticism.)

“The reason why you see high vaccination rates in places without vaccine mandates outside the U.S. is because public trust in public health is just very, very high,” Bhattacharya said. “I believe mandates are counterproductive for that.”