Bhattacharya Opposes Vaccine Mandates, Promises to Tackle Chronic Disease Epidemic

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, President Donald Trump's nominee to lead the NIH, said during his confirmation hearing that he opposes vaccine mandates and scientific censorship.

by Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D.

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the National Institutes of Health (NIH), said during today’s confirmation hearing that he opposes vaccine mandates and scientific censorship.

He also told members of the U.S. Senate’s Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (STEP) that he believes in diverse scientific research and he supports efforts to address today’s chronic disease epidemic.

During his opening statement, Bhattacharya, a critic of COVID-19 pandemic restrictions and co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, listed the five priorities he will pursue if confirmed as NIH director:

• Tackle the chronic disease epidemic.

• Support scientific research that is “replicable, reproducible and generalizable.”

• Establish “a culture of respect for free speech in science and scientific dissent.”

• Fund “the most innovative biomedical research agenda possible to improve American health.”

• “Vigorously” regulate research “that has the possibility of causing a pandemic,” such as gain-of-function research.

According to STAT News, if confirmed as NIH director, Bhattacharya will oversee “the biggest funder of biomedical research in the world.” Composed of 27 research institutes and centers, the NIH has a nearly $50 billion budget, NBC News reported.

Following the hearing, Endpoints News reported that Bhattacharya sailed through today’s proceedings and “appears headed for a relatively easy Senate confirmation.”

Bhattacharya supports ‘broad scientific agenda’ to study rise in autism

Early during the hearing, Bhattacharya responded to statements by Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), chair of the committee, that a link between the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism has been debunked and therefore doesn’t require further scientific study.

Bhattacharya responded:

“As far as research on autism and vaccines, I don’t generally believe that there is a link, based on my reading of the literature. But what I have seen is that there’s tremendous distrust in medicine and science coming out of the pandemic.

“We do have … a sharp rise in autism rates in this country, and I don’t know, and I don’t think any scientist really knows, the cause of it. So, I would support [a] broad scientific agenda based on data to get an answer to that.”

Bhattacharya said people’s doubts about vaccines and mistrust toward public health agencies can be addressed by providing “good data.”

“We want answers,” he said. “Parents want answers. Kids are suffering. And the NIH ought to be doing the research that [provides] those answers. That’s the most important thing.”

Bhattacharya called for funding “the most innovative biomedical research agenda possible to improve American health.”

“My plan is to ensure that the NIH invests in cutting-edge research in every field to make big advances rather than just small incremental progress,” Bhattacharya said.

Bhattacharya will carry out the Make America Healthy Again agenda

Much of Bhattacharya’s testimony focused on the chronic disease epidemic in the U.S., its cost to American society — particularly children — and his plans to address the epidemic, if confirmed, by aligning with Trump’s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) agenda.

“The chronic disease crisis is severe with hundreds of millions of Americans, children and adults suffering from obesity, heart disease, cancer and more,” Bhattacharya said. If confirmed, I will carry out President Trump and Secretary Kennedy’s agenda of committing the NIH to address the dire chronic health needs of the country with gold-standard science and innovation,” Bhattacharya said.

He blamed childhood diabetes and obesity for most childhood illnesses. “That’s where the vast majority of [NIH] efforts should go.”

He criticized NIH for its past failure to address the chronic disease epidemic:

“I think the chronic disease problem is something that the NIH ought to have done a better job at [for] the last several decades. The mission of the NIH is to address the health needs the American people have and to expand life expectancy of the American people, and we have not achieved that.”

He said NIH research should focus on a broader range of research that solves the American chronic disease crisis.

“We need to have a lot more tolerance that the top scientists who controlled the ideas in their fields may be wrong. We need to allow other scientists who have other ideas.”

NIH ‘oversaw a culture of cover-up, obfuscation’

Bhattacharya — who was censored on social media platforms such as Twitter at the behest of the Biden administration during the COVID-19 pandemic due to his positions on COVID-era restrictions and who also faced censure by Stanford University, where he is a professor of health policy — criticized scientific censorship.

“Over the last few years, top NIH officials oversaw a culture of cover-up, obfuscation and a lack of tolerance for ideas that differ from theirs,” Bhattacharya said. “Dissent is the very essence of science. I’ll foster a culture where NIH leadership will actively encourage different perspectives.”

He said that contrary to pandemic-era guidance to unquestioningly “follow the science,” scientific progress requires tolerance for a broad range of perspectives. “I want to make sure that all the range of hypotheses are supported.”

Bhattacharya told committee members that censorship of non-establishment perspectives, including criticism of pandemic-era measures such as lockdowns, caused significant harm. He cited the examples of Florida and Sweden, which did not keep schools closed for extended periods during the pandemic. He said:

“The Swedish example, for instance, where there’s lower death rates, all-cause excess death rates in Sweden relative to their neighbors, including Norway, including Germany, which locked down more, is an example that we didn’t need to do the lockdowns.

“Florida having lower all-cause excess death rates than California … is an example where the lockdowns did not save lives but had tremendous consequences on the well-being of the poor, the working class, on children and the vulnerable.”

He suggested these societies ultimately had better pandemic outcomes because they were open to scientific dissent and did not deploy scientists as policymakers.

“The proper role of scientists in a pandemic is to answer basic questions that policymakers have about what the right policy should be … If science is a force for freedom and for knowledge, it will have universal support. That’s what the role of science is.”

In a Feb. 20 post on X, Cassidy said that Bhattacharya “has a vision to restore faith in medical research for the American people, protect and improve the institution, and better distribute the benefits.”

The STEP Committee is expected to vote on Bhattacharya’s confirmation in the coming days. If the committee votes in Bhattacharya’s favor, the full Senate will hold a final confirmation vote.

Related articles in The Defender

• Trump Taps Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, Co-author of ‘Great Barrington Declaration,’ to Lead NIH

• RFK Jr. Pushes Back on Chronic Disease, Autism and Agency Corruption

• No Proof MMR Vaccine Is ‘Safer’ than Measles, Mumps or Rubella Infection, Physician Group Says

• ‘Vaccines Do Not Cause Autism’ Claim Built on ‘House of Cards,’ Authors of New Review Say

• ‘True Corruption’: Agency Capture Responsible for Chronic Disease Epidemic in U.S.

Watch the confirmation hearing here: