Planned NIH Cuts Threaten Americans\u2019 Health, Senators Charge in Tense Hearing<\/p>\n
Senators grilled NIH director Jayanta Bhattacharya the day after more than 300 NIH staff members sent him a fiery letter protesting the cancellation of thousands of research projects<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
By Max Kozlov<\/a> & Nature magazine<\/a> <\/p>\n U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Jayanta (Jay) Bhattacharya testifies during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on June 10, 2025.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Ting Shen\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n U.S. senators grilled National Institutes of Health (NIH) director Jayanta Bhattacharya<\/a> at a hearing on 10 June about how his professed support for science squares with unprecedented funding delays and research-grant terminations at the agency<\/a> this year, as well as enormous cuts that have been proposed for its 2026 budget<\/a>.<\/p>\n What would normally be a routine hearing about government spending was anything but: hundreds of scientists and advocates for Alzheimer\u2019s disease research packed into a cramped room on Capitol Hill to denounce US President Donald Trump\u2019s 2026 budget request, which calls for cutting the NIH\u2019s budget by about 40% and collapsing its 27 institutes and centres into 8.<\/p>\n Such a cut \u201cwould stop critical Alzheimer\u2019s research in its tracks,\u201d Tonya Maurer, an advocate for the Alzheimer\u2019s Association, a non-profit group based in Chicago, Illinois, told Nature<\/i> at the hearing. \u201cWe\u2019ve worked too damn hard to see this happen.\u201d<\/p>\n If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing<\/a>. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.<\/p>\n Bhattacharya defended his leadership at the agency \u2014 the largest public funder of biomedical research in the world \u2014 noting that there is a \u201cneed for reform at the NIH\u201d and that to restore its reputation, the NIH \u201ccannot return to business as usual.\u201d (The NIH has been accused by Trump and his Republican allies of funding \u2018woke\u2019 science and research on coronaviruses that they say could have sparked the COVID-19 pandemic<\/a>.) To help fix the agency, Bhattacharya told the senators that he wants to focus on increasing reproducibility in biomedical research, upholding academic freedom and studying the cause of autism, which US health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr has pledged to find an answer to by September.<\/p>\n The hearing comes the day after more than 300 NIH staff members sent Bhattacharya a fiery letter<\/a> decrying the mass termination of jobs at the agency<\/a> and its cancellation of thousands of research projects on a growing list of topics that the Trump team has said are \u2018politicized\u2019, including those investigating the biology of COVID-19, the health of sexual and gender minorities (LGBT+) and reasons that people might be hesitant to receive a vaccine.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are compelled to speak up when our leadership prioritizes political momentum over human safety and faithful stewardship of public resources,\u201d the staff members wrote.<\/p>\n They named their letter the \u2018Bethesda Declaration,\u2019 after the Maryland community and Washington DC suburb where most of the NIH is located. The title also alludes to the \u2018Great Barrington Declaration\u2019<\/a>, an open letter that Bhattacharya co-signed in October 2020 that argued against COVID-19 lockdowns except for the most vulnerable citizens, instead allowing for children and others to be infected so that \u2018herd immunity\u2019 could be reached ― a proposal that numerous scientists and NIH officials called dangerous at the time.<\/p>\n At the hearing, Patty Murray, a Democratic senator from Washington, implored Bhattacharya to \u201cheed their warning,\u201d and said that she expects that \u201cnone of them face retaliation for raising those concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n Bhattacharya didn\u2019t respond to this comment at the hearing but said in a statement on 9 June that the Bethesda Declaration \u201chas some fundamental misconceptions about the policy directions the NIH has taken in recent months,\u201d but that \u201crespectful dissent in science is productive.\u201d<\/p>\n Gavin Yamey, a global-health researcher at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, who signed the latest declaration, said, \u201che can talk about freedom, but his own staff are decrying his censorship. How he\u2019s actually acting and what he says are not one in the same.\u201d<\/p>\n Several senators, including Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat from Wisconsin, questioned who was in charge at the NIH, given reports that billionaire Elon Musk\u2019s Department of Government Efficiency ordered<\/a> agency employees to cut hundreds of specific grants.<\/p>\n \u201cThe changes in priorities, the move away from politicized science, I\u2019ve made those decisions,\u201d Bhattacharya responded. The mass terminations of awards at institutions such as Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, \u201cthat\u2019s joint with the administration\u201d, he said. (The Trump administration has alleged that universities such as Harvard have allowed discrimination, including antisemitism, on their campuses, and has cut or frozen research funding as a result<\/a>.)<\/p>\n The drastic 40% cut to the NIH\u2019s budget proposed for the fiscal year 2026 is not yet set in stone: the US Congress has the ultimate say over government spending, and during Trump\u2019s first presidency, when he proposed a huge cut to the biomedical agency in 2017, it instead approved a slight increase. Nevertheless, the composition of the body has changed significantly since then \u2014 far more of its members are now loyal to Trump.<\/p>\n Comments made at the hearing by the senators weren\u2019t entirely divided down party lines. Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine who voted to confirm both Bhattacharya and RFK Jr, said she was disturbed by the budget proposal.<\/p>\n \u201cIt would undo years of congressional investment in the NIH,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n This article is reproduced with permission and was <\/i>first published<\/i><\/a> on June 11, 2025<\/i>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"Close](\"https:\/\/static.scientificamerican.com\/dam\/m\/c44d604e3d3a743\/original\/nih_director_jay_bhattacharya_at_senate_appropriations_committee.jpg?m=1749674971.12&w=600\")
On supporting science journalism<\/h2>\n
Letters of dissent<\/h2>\n
Taking ownership<\/h2>\n