“The total amount that Congress allocated last year was spent, every single dollar of it,” he said after a morning event at the University of Massachusetts Club on Beacon Hill. “And next year, the proposal is to spend the same amount or 1 percent more.”
But Bhattacharya, who spent much of his career as a researcher at Stanford University in California, acknowledged that changes in NIH funding, which give money to fewer research projects, has caused anxiety.
“There’s still obviously uncertainty over … the funding for the NIH next year,” he said, adding he’s heard from Congress and the Trump administration “a desire to see that the NIH is funded, at least the same level it has been.”
Bhattacharya appeared to dismiss concerns about whether cuts to NIH research grants would lead to a “brain drain” of scientists that could catapult other countries such as China into a leadership position in scientific research.
And he took issue with claims that he wanted to move research grant funding away from states like Massachusetts and California, saying that he never made that assertion.
“I want Iowa, Nebraska scientists, scientists at every institution, to be able to compete on the same level playing fields with the brilliant scientists here in Massachusetts,” he said.
“The institutions here have some of the very best scientists in the world,” he added. “So I don’t see a future with Massachusetts not having support. But I would love to see that kind of success spread all across the country.”
Bhattacharya was invited to Massachusetts by US Representatives Jake Auchincloss and Richard Neal. The congressmen were among 11 members of Massachusetts’s all-Democratic congressional delegation who in September implored the Trump administration to speed the release of more than $1 billion in frozen medical research funding, calling it a “matter of life and death.”
Neal said he wanted to ensure that Bhattacharya understood the vital contributions Massachusetts delivers to the world, from biotech and medical breakthroughs to venture capital funding.
“I told him that I understand you want to expand some of the grant writing opportunities that NIH has, but we want to make sure they aren’t political decisions, but policy-driven decisions,” said Neal, who described the morning’s closed-door meeting as “contentious.”
Representative Auchincloss said that Massachusetts scientists want to convey that NIH funding should be a “scientific meritocracy.”
“This wasn’t about Massachusetts saying Massachusetts wants more money,” said Auchincloss, whose office touted the NIH director’s visit as his first to a congressional Democrat’s district. “This was about great scientists representing great scientific institutions saying we want the best science to win.”
Bhattacharya also toured the Broad Institute in Cambridge, a research center that received $240 million last year in federal funds, mostly from NIH.
John Fernandez, CEO of Brown University Health, said he attended the morning session because he was concerned about future NIH funding.
“Honestly, it’s great that the director of the NIH came up and met with the Massachusetts constituents,” Fernandez said.
Edward Coppinger, head of government affairs for MassBio, a trade group for the life sciences industry, said he and others in the morning session were disappointed by Bhattacharya’s assertion that the NIH’s overall funding had stayed the same, given numerous reports that clinical trials were being canceled and the number of research projects being funded has declined.
“It was smoke and mirrors,” he said.
Coppinger said that Bhattacharya didn’t seem to address concerns raised by some that morale is “incredibly low” among scientists.
“We have people on the verge of breakthroughs with clinical trials that aren’t getting funded,” Coppinger said. “It was a difficult pill for a lot of the people in the room to swallow, that they don’t know what the future holds..”
No institution was hit harder than Harvard University by the funding interruption. The nation’s oldest and richest university lost nearly $3 billion in grants because the Trump administration alleged it tolerated antisemitism on campus. Most of the funding was restored by October, after a federal judge ruled that the cuts were illegal.
But there’s widespread concern that the NIH’s moves will redirect future NIH funding away from big East Coast and West Coast academic centers, which will wreak scientific and economic havoc on Massachusetts. The NIH is the world’s largest sponsor of medical research.
The state’s economy revolves around its educational and medical institutions. By one analysis, for every dollar lost in NIH grants, that translates into two dollars lost in economic output in Massachusetts.
NIH records show that Bhattacharya himself received millions of dollars through more than 30 NIH grants since 2001 to conduct scientific research.
At a Senate hearing in June, Bhattacharya said that he wants to make the NIH more competitive and more focused on research that yields results. A new approach to federal funding, he said, had the potential to spread federal money more evenly across the United States. He estimated that 60 to 65 percent of the NIH budget goes to just 20 universities.
It was Bhattacharya’s repeated criticism of pandemic lockdowns and mask mandates that caught President Trump’s attention, ultimately landing him the top job at the NIH.
Bhattacharya was also a co-author in 2020 of the controversial Great Barrington Declaration, which said before any vaccines were available that authorities should allow the coronavirus to spread among young healthy people in order to achieve “herd immunity” while protecting the elderly and the vulnerable. Other health experts skewered the declaration, saying achieving herd immunity through natural infections was not a sound strategy, given the disease’s potential severity.
Since becoming NIH director, Bhattacharya has frequently trumpeted the phrase “Make America Healthy Again,” echoing Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He has said he personally does not see a link between vaccines and autism but that more research may be needed because there is “tremendous distrust” in medicine and science after COVID.
He has also echoed Trump’s condemnations of diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, policies, although, as a researcher, Bhattacharya published at least five papers on racial health disparities, according to a STAT article.
Bhattacharya said he remains committed to funding research on health disparities – but he said studies should focus on improving the health of minorities and not be “ideologically focused.” .
Other researchers have wondered whether Bhattacharya, who has spent his career in science, is troubled by the upheaval the NIH’s massive changes are having on friends and fellow scientists. He told the Globe he is not going after friends — he is attacking chronic diseases that plague Americans.
“I have no problem sleeping because I can see that the investments we’ve made, which have led to tremendous advances in biological knowledge, have not translated over to improving the life expectancy of Americans since 2010,” he said.
Jonathan Saltzman can be reached at jonathan.saltzman@globe.com. Kay Lazar can be reached at kay.lazar@globe.com Follow her @GlobeKayLazar. Chris Serres can be reached at chris.serres@globe.com. Follow him @ChrisSerres. Jessica Bartlett can be reached at jessica.bartlett@globe.com. Follow her @ByJessBartlett.
