Trump’s pick to head NIH avoids major controversy at Senate hearing
With an unflappable demeanor, President Donald Trump’s nominee to head the National Institutes of Health (NIH) today pledged support for the $47.4 billion agency’s mission at his Senate confirmation hearing and said he would review recent cuts to staff and a funding freeze. But Stanford University health economist Jay Bhattacharya also said he will advance controversial priorities of Trump and Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., including halting fetal tissue research and potentially launching new studies of approved vaccines with a well-established safety record. Bhattacharya’s insistence that collecting new data on vaccine safety would help convince skeptical parents to immunize their children troubled Senator Bill Cassidy (R–LA), who chairs the Senate health committee considering the NIH nomination. “People still think Elvis is alive,” Cassidy said. “If you just say someone disagrees with me,...