Jayanta Bhattcharya Jayanta Bhattcharya speaks on March 5, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
Washington – Jay Bhattcharya, director of the National Institute of Health, said on Tuesday that he would work with the congress to possibly reverse a steep reduction in the agency’s financing, which the White House proposed in his budget application at the beginning of this year.
Bhattacharya told very critical Republicans and Democrats in the Senate Panel, who writes the annual expenditure law of the NIH that he is “happy” to work with the legislator to find a level of financing that everyone can support in the coming months.
“This is my first time through this budgetary struggle and I am still learning. But I will tell you that the budget is a joint effort between the congress and the administration,” said Bhattcharya. “I look forward to working with all of them in order to promote real health needs – not only the people here in the room that represent the Alzheimer’s patients, but also the health needs of all Americans.”
Susan Collins, chairwoman of the Senate, R-Main, said that it was “worrying” that the President’s budget proposed that the legislator reduced the NIH financing in the upcoming expenditure law by around $ 18 billion or $ 40%.
“It would reverse years of congress investments in Nih,” said Collins. “And it would delay or prevent effective treatments and remedies for diseases such as Alzheimer’s, cancer, type -1 -diabetes. I could continue and further.
“We also risk falling behind China and other countries that increase their investments in biomedical research.”
Collins said the committee intended in the coming months when the committee writes the government’s annual financing calculations to work with Bhattacharya to fix these problems and the defects in the coming months.
Collins also blamed Bhattcharya to reduce how much the NIH scholarship holders for facilities and administrative costs are paid for paying invoices that are not directly connected to a research project.
Nih efforts to limit these indirect costs to 15% Are in the queue The Association of the American Medical Colleges and the Association of American universities work as complaints from democratic attorney in general.
“This proposed upper limit is so poorly designed,” said Collins. “And I saw first -hand how harmful it is. It leads to scientists to leave the United States in other countries. It leads to clinical studies to be stopped and promising medical research that is abandoned. Since 2018 it has also been against the Federal Law.
Collins asked Bhattcharya to speak to Kelvin K. Drugemeier, who worked as a science consultant of President Donald Trump during his first term. Drugemeier is chairman of A group compiled to propose changes to the indirect cost model through the unification of public and agricultural universities.
“Honestly catastrophic”
The Democratic Senator of Washington State, Patty Murray, a ranked member of the appropriation committee, urged Bhattcharya to defend the measures taken so far, and those who were proposed in the budget application.
“To be honest, what the Trump administration is doing at the moment is catastrophic,” said Murray. “In the past few months, this administration has released and issued almost 5,000 critical employees in nih and, which has been granted subsidy financing of almost $ 2,500 almost $ 2,500 of almost $ 5 billion for life-saving research, which includes ongoing research, which includes ongoing research.
Murray added that nobody in America wishes less research on treatments and healing for cancer or Alzheimer’s disease.
The Republican Senator of West Virginia, Shelley Moore Capito, chair of the subcommittee for the Labor HHS education agents, is held The hearingcommented on the proposed budget cuts from NIH and said that they had triggered alarms at numerous research universities.
“These institutions are the reason why America has kept the advantage in biomedical research and innovation,” said Capito. “As with many management changes, it seems to be increased concern and confusion that the redirection of resources from research will lead to less healthy America.”
Capito emphasized that she expects Nih to continue to concentrate the research efforts on Alzheimer’s, an illness that affects more than 7 million Americans.
“For almost a decade, this committee has supported research on the goals of looking for treatments and a healing for Alzheimer’s disease,” said Capito. “For me, this goal is very personal, as you know because my two parents lived with this disease and finally succumbed to them. And I was able to look in the audience and see that many people here are extremely interested in this research area.”
Delayed financing in the States
The Democratic Senator of Wisconsin, Tammy Baldwin, ranked member of the subcommittee, also administered Bhattacharya because he lowered the financing for projects that dealt with Alzheimer’s and several other diseases.
“Nih delayed $ 65 million for 14 Alzheimer’s research centers for Alzheimer’s diseases in nine states, including the University of Wisconsin Madison,” said Baldwin. “In eight states, eight states have delayed 47 million US dollars for the support of the cancer center in nine cancer centers. In eight states, it delayed 55 million US dollars for 11 grants for scarce diseases.
“Leave the immersion: This administration is aware that no research on Alzheimer’s disease, cancer and scarce diseases has ended and Nih has ended grants for morbidity and mortality centers of mothers, a subsidy that develops modern digital imaging techniques for cervical cancer screening and a potential healing course for infancy, which was born with HIV were only born a few HIVs. “
The Republican senator of Alabama, Katie Britt, asked Bhattcharya to ensure that the NIH Republic on the health research of the mother and possibilities to reduce the high mortality rate of the country.
“Look, far too many women in this country die of pregnancy -related reasons,” said Britt. “They look at Alabama, we have one of the highest mothers’ mortality rates in the nation.
