Overview: Throughout the hearing, Bhattacharya assured Representatives that he would fully obligate NIH's fiscal year (FY) 2026 funds. In reality, NIH staff shortages combined with cumbersome, unnecessary, and discriminatory grant screening processes have put at risk NIH's ability to fund grants by the end of the fiscal year.

What Bhattacharya said

In response to Representative DeLauro:

"Yes, we will spend the allocation on excellent sciences here. And scientists that are listening, don't pay attention to the hype."

"We did this last year. The colleagues that I have at the NIH that accomplished really a remarkable task of, even despite all the disruptions, getting grants out the door, spending the entire allocation of the fiscal year 2025 money..."

In response to Representative Hoyer:

"We spent all the entire allocation of funds for 2025. We have a hiring plan to make sure that we are even... We have all of the holes we identified unfilled this year, and we're working as hard as we can to fill them."

"The hiring plan that we have, I think whatever turbulence we had last year, is designed to fill that turbulence so that we don't have the turbulence in the future."

"And what he [NCI Director Letai] told me is that, first, that Reporter is lagging. It's not true."

In response to Representative Bice:

"I don't see a bottleneck [in outgoing NIH grant awards] now.... My job is to make sure every single dollar goes out, and it will go out by the end of the year on excellent science. A lot of the concerns, it just seems like political noise to me. It's not reality."

What's actually happening: Ongoing delays in fiscal year (FY) 2026 NIH funding have been widely tracked, even by NIH itself. NIH is lagging behind past years in both number and dollar amount of awards, with new awards particularly low compared to the past. By the end of February 2026, NIH had issued 66% fewer new awardscompared to the same time point on average in 2021-2024. The cause of these delays is likely multifactorial, including the 43-day shutdown; delays in apportionment of the NIH budget by the Office of Management and Budget; cumbersome, unnecessary, and discriminatory grant screening processes; and staff shortages. Leadership from one NIH institute estimates it has less than half of the workers it needs to process grants, projecting it could leave up to $500 million of congressionally appropriated funding on the table. The shortage of grants management specialists (the staff who process grant awards) is so substantial that some institutes have asked staff scientists, fellows/students, and program officers to volunteer to temporarily transition to grants management roles, without appropriate consideration of training needs or previously assigned work (personal communication from NIH staff). As a result of probationary terminations, reductions in force, incentivized retirements, and staff resigning in protest rather than cross ethical and legal boundaries, NIH has lost more than 4,200 staff (~20%) since January 2025. While the administration finally lifted the lengthy hiring freeze, progress in hiring has been slow. Staff inside NIH report difficulty hiring staff, as many scientists remain reluctant to transition to the Federal government, when administration leaders have disclosed their intention to traumatize staff and employees who have questioned Bhattacharya's leadership, such as Jeanne Marrazzo and Jenna Norton, have been removed from their roles.

Instead of addressing the Representatives' legitimate concerns about the slow progress of 2026 awards, Bhattacharya:

• Attempted to undermine the concern, falsely claiming that Reporter (NIH's public repository of NIH-funded research) is substantially delayed. While Reporter does have a 7-10 day delay, this does not come close to accounting for how far behind the NIH is in terms of awards in FY26 compared to FY24.

• Repeatedly highlighted that FY25 funds were fully obligated without acknowledging this was accomplished through substantially increased use of multiyear funding (MYF). As discussed in the “Rapid transition to multiyear funding section” below, multiyear funded grants obligate a larger portion of the given year's budget and reduce the number of new awards NIH can fund, leaving excellent science unfunded.

• Expressed confidence that his demoralized, overworked and disrespected staff will get the job done. He highlights that NIH successfully obligated its funding in FY25 "despite all the disruptions" without taking any ownership for those disruptions, which continued under his leadership. In FY25, to overcome staff shortages and fully obligate the budget, NIH staff had to work long hours on evenings and weekends without overtime pay. But as NIH and Administration leadership continue to further slow grant award progress through apportionment delays and unnecessary and discriminatory grant screening processes, leadership may find it increasingly difficult to motivate such unacknowledged overtime among their staff.

Overview: In FY25, the White House mandated that NIH multiyear fund 50% of its new research awards. Because MYF awards the full dollar amount of a 4- to 5-year grant upfront, each MYF award uses a larger portion of the annual budget thus reducing the number of new awards. (You can either pay for 4 grants for 1 year each, or 1 grant for 4 years.) As a result of the MYF mandate, NIH funded 24% fewer new research awards and had a substantially lower application success rates in FY25 compared to FY24. Despite the substantial drawbacks of MYF, Bhattacharya, ignoring these well-known ill effects, tries to shift blame for low success rates to AI-generated applications, and overstates the benefit to early stage researchers, who were disproportionately harmed by the MYF mandate.

What Bhattacharya said:

In response to Representative Hoyer:

"...we fund roughly about 8 -10% of the grants... the previous year, there were people that were putting in 60 grants applications... the total number of applications includes a lot of AI-generated content. We've taken action to try to address that. The pay lines are, of course, a numerator and a denominator."

In response to Representative DeLauro:

"So yeah, I'm committed to following exactly what you all told me to do. So whatever that limit [for multiyear funding] is."

"Sometimes for early career scientists, what you need is a front loaded grant, because they're building their lab and so they can't wait till year two or three to get the money to build the labs. So it's scientifically justified to have it front loaded. And I've been focused on when we're front loading to make sure that it has that scientific justification."

What's actually happening: While Bhattacharya committed to adhering to the MYF limit set by Congress in the FY26 appropriation bill, the bill only limited MYF to the level used in FY25. Thus Bhattacharya only committed to the same level of MYF that contributed to a 24% decrease in new NIH-funded research and constrained award success rates in FY25 relative to FY24. Thus, we can expect similar constraints on new research funding in FY26, even if Bhattacharya adheres to the appropriation bill. Fewer grants were funded in FY25 than in previous years, largely as a result of MYF mandates. According to NIH data, the success rate (awards per application) was 13% (8,161 awards of 62,592 applications) in FY25, compared to:

• 19% (10,265 awards of 55,418 applications) in FY24

• 21% (11,052 awards of 51,883 applications) in FY23

• 21% (11,311 awards of 54,571 applications) in FY22

• 19% (11,229 awards of 58,872 applications) in FY 21

While the number of applications (denominator) did increase in FY25 by 13%, the number of awards fell by a much larger proportion: 20%. Thus, the reduction in the numerator (i.e., funded awards) was the primary driver in the drop in success rate in FY25. Instead of acknowledging the low success rate in FY25 and the role that MYF played in it, Bhattacharya distracts with a an exaggerated example. While NIH did identify a single case where a PI submitted more than 40 (not 60) applications in a single year, the case is an extreme outlier, and not a primary driver of the drop in success rates.

As for the benefits of MYF, any that exist far outweigh the costs of the top-down MYF mandate implemented under Bhattacharya. NIH applicants have always been able to request a higher amount in their year one budget, if needed. Further, the MYF mandate divorces scientific considerations from decisions about whether to use MYF on an individual grant, forcing NIH to MYF grants regardless of the scientific justification. Importantly, some grants are not amenable to multiyear funding, such as clinical trials, because many trials exceed the 5-year shelf life of obligated funds. MYF also reduces the ability for program staff to oversee research progress on awarded grants or to ensure money is being spent appropriately.

Overview: Bhattacharya repeatedly spoke of NIH's commitment to minority health research under his leadership. In reality, he has overseen the implementation of a discriminatory censorship tool that has disproportionately excluded people from racial and ethnic minority groups from the benefits of NIH research.

What Bhattacharya said:

In his opening statement:

"CRISPR-based gene editing has led to not just one, but two treatments for sickle cell disease, a painful condition that's burdened families for generations, especially African American kids."

In response to Representative Watson Coleman:

"I think it is absolutely essential to our mission that we do research that improves the health and wellbeing of minority populations"

"I guess I want to make a distinction, right? So the NIH, if we don't do research that improves the health of minority populations, we're not accomplishing our mission. It is vital. We're not accomplishing our mission. We have to do research that improves the health of minority populations, right? So I don't think there's anybody that disagrees with that. Research that is not rigorous, not as overly politicized, that doesn't actually have a chance of improving minority health, I don't want to fund it."

"You want a line between DEI and not DEI. My line is research that has no chance, is politicized, and has no chance of actually improving human health."

What's actually happening: Bhattacharya mandated the implementation of an NIH-wide grant screening process that involves a "computational text analysis tool" that screens grants for "terms that may potentially be associated with misalignment with the agency’s priorities" and then requires "renegotiation" of grants containing "misaligned" terms. While the set of "misaligned" terms continuously evolves, NIH staff compiled every term flagged for renegotiation across all grants at four different institutes between fall 2025 and early 2026 and provided the list to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. During that period, grants were flagged for including terms that identify racial/ethnic minority groups, such as "African American," "Hispanic American," and "Asian American." (Notably, grants have not been flagged for including the terms "white American" or “European American.") That this history of blatantly discriminatory censorship under Bhattacharya's leadership led to the termination of sickle cell research makes his opening statement acknowledgment of benefits to the African American community from advances in sickle cell research grossly disingenuous. While NIH recently removed many racial/ethnic minority group terms from the list, grants continue to get flagged for terms such as "racial/ethnic minority" and "Latinx" as of mid-April 2026. As a result of these discriminatory screening processes implemented at NIH under Bhattacharya, funding for minority health and health disparities research has been terminated and delayed.

Despite multiple requests from NIH staff and the broader scientific community, Bhattacharya has not provided a definition of what constitutes "DEI." His descriptions and current NIH screening policies often conflate multiple distinct concepts under the term 'DEI,' including health equity and health disparities research, minority health research, research workforce diversity, and inclusion of diverse populations in NIH research. Stating a priori without evidence that a given strategy will not improve health outcomes is not science, it is dogma. Every grant now being screened under Bhattacharya's new process at NIH was judged in both peer and programmatic review to be innovative, meritorious, and worthy of scientific exploration funded by the NIH. Instead of deferring to scientists with expertise in the given field of research, Bhattacharya is overriding the scientific judgment of the research community. His unfounded claim that health equity research "has no chance of actually improving human health" runs counter to existing evidence, which shows that equity-focused quality of care interventions in maternal health and cancer have reduced disparities while also improving outcomes for all patients, regardless of racial or ethnic identity. Some terminated studies (currently reinstated under lawsuit) were adapting previously successful interventions to novel patient populations and settings, building practical knowledge to help healthcare settings improve real-world outcomes.

Overview: Bhattacharya repeatedly asserted that NIH funding decisions would be based on scientific merit, but ongoing censorship of research grants based on a discriminatory set of keywords, the removal of pay lines (a set score above which grants are typically funded) both as a tool to make funding decisions and to provide transparency in these decisions, and the increased involvement of HHS and the White House in NIH decision-making suggest otherwise.

What Bhattacharya said:

In response to Representative DeLauro, asking for assurance that funding decisions will be based on scientific merit:

"[funding decisions will be based on] That alone. Scientific merit and the potential to actually improve the health and wellbeing of the American people."

In response to Representative Pocan:

"...I'm trying to stay out of politics as much as I possibly can because I think science is what the NIH should be always about."

In response to Representative Dean:

"...we're implementing his [Trump's] executive orders, but I don't think that's inconsistent with excellent science."

What's actually happening: Under Bhattacharya, NIH continues to experience significant and unprecedented interference from the White House and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). All new notices of funding opportunity now require review by the OMB. This political interference has slowed the publication of NIH notices of funding opportunity (NOFO) almost to a complete halt, going from more than 700 per year on average to 120 in FY25 and 17 as of March 2026. This political NOFO disruption has even interrupted Congressionally-mandated programs, such as the Special Diabetes Program, the Gabriella Miller Kids First program, and the Brain Initiative, among many others, which have been delayed well past their due dates.

Further, NIH has both moved away from peer review, toward funding assessments that incorporate a broader set of factors. While this is a reasonable approach when we can be assured decisions will be made by scientists using transparent processes, we have no such guarantee as HHS and White House involvement increase. Official NIH policy suggests funding decisions will be made by Institute and Center Directors, but 16 of 27 directorships remain unfilled and several Institute and Center Directors were fired, including one for speaking up against political interference, leaving the remaining Directors hesitant to oppose political appointees.

NIH has also implemented term-based screening processes that effectively prevent grants using certain keywords from being funded without "renegotiation." These keywords are in no way associated with the merit of the science nor with the likelihood of improving the health and wellbeing of the American people, unless Bhattacharya is limiting that term to white/European Americans, one of few race groups that has never been listed among the discriminatory grant screening terms. Up until recently, the terms included "African American," "Hispanic American," "Asian American," and other similar racial/ethnic minority identifiers. While these most egregious terms appear to have been removed from the NIH screening, terms like "minority," "Latinx" and "diverse" remain.

Bhattacharya also refused to condemn partisan language inserted into the NIH hiring processes that requires applicants to identify their commitment to Trump's Executive orders, which are inherently political, contain scientifically inaccurate information, and do not carry the weight of law. Trump's executive orders undermine decades of existing science. One Trump Executive Order denies the existence of gender, which is a scientifically valid concept backed by decades of research. This executive order also denies the existence of an estimated 5 million intersex Americans, who were born with a reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn’t fit the typical definitions of female or male. Trump's Executive order on DEI undermines existing peer-reviewed evidence on the benefits of diversity, and is being applied much more broadly to undermine the entire field of health equity research. These executive orders don't just undermine excellent science, they undermine reality. Requiring NIH applicants to commit to such executive orders risks the politicization of rank-and-file NIH staff and should be rejected outright by a person claiming to keep the NIH non-political.

As for Bhattacharya remaining apolitical, during his tenure as NIH Director he has spoken at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in March 2026 and the National Conservatism Conference in September 2025.

Overview: Of the 27 institutes at the NIH, 16 currently lack a director. This leadership vacuum was largely created by the administration when they forced out many well-respected and successful NIH directors. During the March 17 hearing, Bhattacharya committed to directors being hired "within the month." At the time of this publication nearly two months later, all 16 positions remain unfilled.

What Bhattacharya said:

In response to Representative Hoyer:

"I have put in a process as rapidly as possible while still having a scientist lead the way and identifying the next directors, a process to hire in each of those slots. You're going to start seeing people being hired starting actually this month and moving forward. The key to me is making sure that it's really scientific merit and leadership ability that determines who those directors are going to be... We have external groups. We heard from you all about the external groups being involved in that process."

In response to Representative Bice:

"When the interviews reach my level, they've gone through this long process of scientific vetting. Normally, that takes years. We've accelerated it. Scientists across the NIH, especially leaders of the NIH, have identified the best candidates."

In response to Representative Dean:

"For the NIH hiring process, it is science first. It's scientists at the institutes that are doing the first level of interviewing. It's along with external groups. It's career scientists at the office of director that's doing the second level screening, and I'm doing the third level of screening."

What's actually happening: NIH did not hire any IC Directors in the month of March. Nor in the one month period from March 17 to April 17. Bhattacharya also asserts that "scientific merit and leadership ability that determines" selection of Institute and Center Directors and that external groups are involved in the hiring process, but this was almost certainly not the case for the new Director of National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Kyle Walsh, who is relatively unknown in the field of environmental health but also happens to be a good friend and former roommate of Vice President JD Vance. NIH staff involved in the hiring process report that no external committees have been involved, and instead committees only include internal NIH scientists including remaining institute directors. It is also hard to believe that Institute Directors are being allowed to lead the charge, or even feel safe to give their honest opinions, given that past Institute Directors have been fired for disagreeing with NIH political leadership. Importantly, Bhattacharya participated in creating the leadership vacuum, as several directors have been removed or not renewed during his tenure.

Overview: Bhattacharya's words express support for early career scientists, but policies at NIH under his leadership have the opposite effect.

What Bhattacharya said:

In response to Representative DeLauro:

"Sometimes for early career scientists, what you need is a front loaded grant, because they're building their lab and so they can't wait till year two or three to get the money to build the labs. So it's scientifically justified to have it front loaded. And I've been focused on when we're front loading to make sure that it has that scientific justification."

In response to Representative Watson Coleman asking about recruiting diverse scientists:

"I think the key thing is empowering early career scientists with great ideas to have access to NIH funds, so that they can do their work."

In response to Representative Pocan:

"And for young researchers who are listening, there's no policy instability that's going to affect your career.... you're going to have much more opportunities than you have had in the past."

What's actually happening: The NIH Director repeatedly states that he supports early career scientists, when in fact his policies have undermined early career scientists. Bhattacharya has overseen the termination of thousands of grant awards to early career scientists. Early career scientists were disproportionately affected by terminations. In addition, as of August 2025, NIH terminated a majority of many training and transition awards, including 58% of F31 fellowship awards, 58% of F30 fellowship awards, and 66% of T34 institutional training awardees. Since then, NIH has elected not to renew many additional training programs, fully eliminating the T34 program. As a result of tightening pay lines and lost funds to terminations, academic training positions are dissolving as leading universities reduce PhD slots and labs rescind training positions. Almost two of every three U.S. universities reported fewer graduate student enrollments in 2025, while universities abroad reported increases. Under Bhattacharya, NIH will no longer recognize the UAW collective bargaining agreement for early-career researchers at the NIH, which undermines their career stability and working conditions. Early career researchers report feeling afraid for their careers and livelihood in this newly unpredictable funding environment. We now have a future generation of scientists who have been severely traumatized and their careers stunted, limiting the discovery of new ideas, cures and treatments.

Overview: In his opening remarks, Bhattacharya emphasized his commitment to HIV research when in reality his actions as Director have actively undermined the field. He implied credit to the Trump administration for recent HIV advances, despite having no involvement in the discovery he highlighted.

What Bhattacharya said:

Opening remarks:

"Over the past year, the NIH has capitalized on past investments and discoveries leading to concrete advances for human health... In 2019, President Trump announced the Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative, where he predicted that we could essentially eliminate HIV from this country by 2030.... what I found over the last year or two is that decades of HIV investments and basic sciences laid the groundwork for developing Lenacapavir, a long acting antiretroviral agent, a new one. A single injection of Lenacapavir, it lasts six to 12 months and offers near total protection against getting HIV.... Last year, 40,000 people got HIV. By 2030, that number should be zero. ... and that's something I'm working on across HHS to make that a reality."

In response to Representative Pocan:

"I think first, at the NIH, I've been focused on the US because I think just 40,000 people had got HIV last year."

In response to Representative Dean noting that HIV is not isolated to any single continent:

"I don't know if that's true actually. I mean, just I think that the idea of getting rid of HIV in this country, that's President Trump actually articulated 2019."

What actually happened: Lenecapavir, a novel drug originating from NIH-funded research, has made a substantial impact. The journal, Science, deemed it the "Breakthrough of the Year!" But this breakthrough did not occur over the past year, as Bhattacharya implies. Rather, Gilead Sciences announced the success of the PURPOSE I trial for Lenacapavir in June of 2024. Bhattacharya also implies that Lenacapavir resulted from Trump's Ending the HIV Epidemic (EHE) initiative, but this is false. The EHE initiative focused on implementing programs to improve prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and outbreak response. The $11.3 million dollars initially given to NIH as part of the program was used for research awards "to collaborate with community partners to develop locally relevant plans for diagnosing, treating and preventing HIV in areas with high rates of new HIV cases." While this work is certainly worthwhile, it had nothing to do with Lenacapavir development. Adding to the irony, the page announcing the launch of the EHE program has been removed from the NIH website as part of the Trump-Bhattacharya purge of DEI-related content and can only be accessed from the web archive. Bhattacharya's emphasis of the EHE program is also highly ironic, given that the second Trump administration effectively gutted the program. HHS staff charged with implementing the EHE were subject to the administration's unlawful reductions in force, including nearly half of the staff at CDC's Division of HIV Prevention and all staff within the HHS Office of Infectious Disease Policy (OIDP).

As for Bhattacharya's claim about eliminating new cases of HIV in the US by 2030, the eradication of HIV in the US alone is likely impossible, given that viral agents do not respect political borders. The George W Bush Institute acknowledges the need for global collaboration to eradicate HIV in the US. Thus relying on "America first" or US-only approaches are destined to fail. Further, HIV research has been among the hardest hit research fields by NIH study terminations and delays, accounting for nearly a third of early grant terminations. Because HIV disproportionately affects racial, ethnic, sexual, and gender minority communities, as well as communities across the globe, the field was deeply affected by the administration's partisan political attacks on "DEI," "gender ideology" and foreign collaboration. HIV vaccine development research was also harmed by the administration's partisan attacks on mRNA technology and vaccines in general. By June 13, 2025, Bhattacharya's NIH had terminated 167 HIV research grants totaling more than $400 million. More than 50 terminated clinical trials at NIH were addressing HIV. Under Bhattacharya, NIH also elected not to renew its Consortia for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Development (CHAVD) after the current grant cycle ending June 2026. While a revamped program that shifts focus away from vaccines and toward immune-based therapies has been proposed, NIH leadership has delayed the Notice of Funding Opportunity from advancing, such that a gap in program funding is all but certain. The threat of the program's dissolution and the continued delays the revamped version have introduced uncertainty that has interrupted ongoing science. Congressionally mandated HIV research centers programs focused on HIV scientific leadership, clinical trials, statistical analysis and data management, and laboratory technology are more than a year behind schedule. Finally, Under Bhattacharya's leadership, NIH has also delayed recompetition of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases's four HIV clinical trial networks such that they also face a gap in funding and may be forced to terminate clinical trials early.

Overview: Despite Bhattacharya's claimed interest in directing funding to underfunded states, Bhattacharya's policies have actually reduced funding in these states.

What Bhattacharya said:

In his opening remarks:

"We'll also develop strategies for greater geographic distribution of funding, which I hope to have a chance to talk about some of these ideas."

In response to Representative Aderholt on barriers that prevent rural universities from successfully competing for NIH funding:

"The key issue is about a third of our portfolio of extramural research goes to about 20 institutions.... But we have to make investments in those places outside of the top 20."

In response to Representative Simpson:

"The key thing is fundamental structural reform, so that we have competition across institutions in different states, essentially introduce a market for those facilities supports separately from the grants, and then have the grants funded, the researchers funded, and the institutions then compete to bring the researchers to their institution to do the research. Essentially create a much more sort of competition friendly approach to where the research gets done."

What's actually happening: Bhattacharya glosses over the fact that the NIH has been successfully supporting scientists at less resourced organizations or in rural areas. The National Institute of General Medical Sciences Institutional Development Award (IDeA) program was mandated by Congress in 1993 to build research capacity in states with historically low NIH funding levels. The program has successfully built capacity in underfunded research states, such as Oklahoma and North Dakota. While Bhattacharya claims to want to enhance funding to these states, grant terminations that occurred under his watch have disproportionately impacted states eligible for the IDeA program. An analysis by the American Association of Medical Colleges found that grant terminations under Bhattacharya impacted IDeA states disproportionately, with a 19% drop on average in FY 2025 in IDeA states compared to a 16% drop in general. Because this analysis was conducted before grants were re-instated under Mass vs Kennedy/APHA vs NIH, and very few IDeA states opted into the lawsuit (only Delaware, Hawaii, New Mexico and Rhode Island), this disparity is likely larger.

What Bhattacharya said:

In response to Representative Aderholt:

"...I saw, during the pandemic, the trust in science dropped and trust in public health drop. It's because there was a sense that the science wasn't working for people. That was really the fundamental problem."

In response to Representative Frankel:

"...the key reason why we're seeing drop in vaccination uptake by children is because of public trust, drop in public trust and public health. The reason why you see high vaccination rates in places without vaccine mandates outside the US is because public trust and public health is just very, very high"

What's actually happening: Bhattacharya ignores the role of that misinformation from people in this administration, including Secretary Kennedy, has played in both low vaccines uptake and reduce trust in public health. Jay Bhattacharya stood next to Secretary Kennedy when he unnecessarily caused widespread panic and confusion across the U.S. by declaring without evidence that Tylenol use during pregnancy causes autism—a claim that has since been withdrawn by RFK Jr. Bhattacharya fails to acknowledge the role that disinformation campaigns played in reduced trust in scientists during the pandemic. He also fails to note that his Great Barrington Declaration was sponsored by the American Institute for Economic Research (AEIR), a libertarian think-tank infamous for spreading misinformation about both climate change and COVID-19. Further, recent polling data suggest Americans' trust in NIH is declining under his leadership, with particular distrust for political leadership.

Overview: Bhattacharya suggests his changes around foreign research collaboration were spurred by a GAO report but fails to mention that NIH had previously addressed the report's concerns.

What Bhattacharya said:

In response to Representative Moolenaar:

"When I joined the NIH, I found a GAO report concerned very much about exactly this, that the NIH investments for foreign collaboration didn't have sufficient oversight. So we've implemented a system where foreign collaboration, not with countries of concern, but with other countries can still happen, but where the NIH has much more direct oversight and auditing responsibilities over the foreign entity."

What actually happened: For years, the NIH has monitored "foreign components" in grant applications and awards. These foreign collaborations are documented in the eRA system known as FACTS and many require State Department clearance. In 2023, GAO did issue a report recommending further oversight on foreign components. As noted on the GAO report webpage, NIH complied with the recommendation from the GAO report in January 2024, updating its Grants Policy Statement to increase oversight of subaward agreements. In addition, in September 2024, NIH officials informed GAO of other relevant actions and provided supporting documentation, including adding a validation step to ensure recipients of certain types of grants could not receive funding for a future period, if progress reports had not been received, as required, and accepted by NIH program officials. This all occured before Bhattacharya's appointment in 2025 . The sudden termination of ongoing collaborations is detrimental to American science, and delays cures and life saving technologies.