NIH researchers challenge Trump policies, Kennedy fires expert vaccine panel

Scientists at the National Institutes of Health on Monday sent their Trump-appointed leader a letter denouncing “policies that undermine the NIH mission, waste public resources, and harm the health of Americans and people across the globe,” reports The Associated Press.

Also on Monday, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired all 17 members of the scientific committee that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on how to use vaccines, says AP.

NIH

The letter to Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, NIH director, cites Trump administration actions that it says jeopardize the agency’s status as the premier global funder of medical research.

Ninety-two NIH researchers, program directors, branch chiefs and scientific review officers have put their signatures on the letter — and 250 of their colleagues across the agency are endorsing the declaration without using their names.

The letter addresses the termination of 2,100 research grants valued at more than $12 billion — and some of the human costs that have resulted, such as cutting off medication to participants in clinical trials or leaving them with unmonitored device implants.

In one case, an NIH-supported study of multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis in Haiti had to be stopped, ending patients’ antibiotic treatment mid-course.

In a number of cases, trials that were mostly complete became useless without the money to finish and analyze the work, the letter says. “Ending a $5 million research study when it is 80 percent complete does not save $1 million,” it says, “it wastes $4 million.”

The scientists write that they hope Bhattacharya welcomes their criticisms, given his pledges to prioritize “academic freedom” and to respect dissenting views.

The letter is called the “Bethesda Declaration” — a play on the controversial “Great Barrington Declaration” that Bhattacharya co-authored during the coronavirus pandemic.

Bhattacharya’s declaration advocated against lockdown measures and proposed that widespread immunity against the coronavirus could be achieved by allowing healthy people to become infected with the virus and instituting protective measures only for medically vulnerable people, KFF says.

Bhattacharya’s declaration was criticized at the time by Dr. Francis Collins, then-director of the NIH, who called Bhattacharya and his co-authors “fringe epidemiologists,” according to emails the American Institute for Economic Research obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Bhattacharya says, “The Bethesda Declaration has some fundamental misconceptions about the policy directions the NIH has taken in recent months, including the continuing support of the NIH for international collaboration. Nevertheless, respectful dissent in science is productive. We all want the NIH to succeed.”

Here is the text of the Bethesda Declaration.

Vaccine panel

Kennedy, a vaccine skeptic, says in a Wall Street Journal opinion article, “we are taking a bold step in restoring public trust by totally reconstituting the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices,” after “conflicts of interest, persecution of dissidents, a lack of curiosity, and skewed science that has plagued the vaccine regulatory apparatus for decades.”

The move directly contradicts a promise Kennedy made to Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., during his confirmation hearings, when he said he wouldn’t alter the panel, says The New York Times.

“Of course, now the fear is that the ACIP will be filled up with people who know nothing about vaccines except suspicion,” Cassidy writes on X.

“I don’t think there’s any way to put this, other than saying that this is an unmitigated public health disaster,” says Dr. Sean O’Leary, chair of the infectious disease committee for the American Academy of Pediatrics.