Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, Donald J. Trump’s nominee to lead the National Institutes of Health, told senators at his confirmation hearing on Wednesday that studies had not shown a link between vaccines and autism, even as he urged more research on the question.
Dr. Bhattacharya’s view is a departure from the views of his future boss if he is confirmed, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has repeatedly suggested a link between vaccines and autism.
Dr. Bhattacharya, a Stanford University health economist, faced intense questioning from the Republican chairman of the Senate health committee, Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a doctor and a fierce advocate for vaccination.
“I fully support children being vaccinated for diseases like measles,” Dr. Bhattacharya said. “As far as research on autism and vaccines, I don’t generally believe that there is a link, based on my reading of literature.”
But Dr. Bhattacharya also said the N.I.H. should nonetheless fund research on the issue to assuage nervous parents who might disagree with him — even though there are limited resources for federal research.
To that, a frustrated Mr. Cassidy shot back: “There’s people who disagree that the world is round. And I say that not to minimize these concerns, but people still think Elvis is alive.”
The N.I.H., the world’s largest funder of biomedical research, with a $48 billion budget and 27 separate institutes and centers, has been rocked lately by the Trump administration’s efforts to block government spending and shrink the federal work force. Hours before Wednesday’s hearing, the Department of Government Efficiency, the cost-cutting group led by Elon Musk, trumpeted the cancellation of N.I.H. grants.
Dr. Bhattacharya would not say on Wednesday whether he supported the cuts, telling senators he had nothing to do with them.
Dr. Bhattacharya, who has a medical degree and is a professor of medicine but has never practiced, has expressed an interest in restructuring the agency and reducing the power of “scientific bureaucrats” who he has said end up “dominating a field for a very long time.” He told senators Wednesday that past N.I.H. officials “oversaw a culture of cover-up, obfuscation and a lack of tolerance for ideas that differ from theirs.”
His views on medicine and public health have at times put Dr. Bhattacharya at odds with many of the scientists whose research the N.I.H. oversees.
While he has defended vaccines and has said he was dubious that they caused autism, Dr. Bhattacharya told an interviewer last year that he could not rule out a link. “I don’t know that for a fact,” he said. Extensive evidence shows no link between immunizations and autism.
Dr. Bhattacharya became a go-to witness in court cases challenging Covid policies, including mask mandates. In several cases, judges said he was disregarding facts or was untrustworthy. His detractors note that while he has published studies on health policy issues — like drug prices and the link between different types of health insurance and H.I.V. deaths — he is not a scientist conducting biomedical research, the core mission of the agency.
But supporters have said that Dr. Bhattacharya could bring needed reform to the N.I.H. and have defended some of his contrarian views on Covid. Several senators noted that Dr. Bhattacharya had in the past received N.I.H. funding for his work.
Dr. Bhattacharya burst into the news at the height of the pandemic in October 2020, when he co-wrote an anti-lockdown treatise, the Great Barrington Declaration, that argued for “focused protection” — a strategy that would focus on protecting the elderly and vulnerable while letting the virus spread among younger, healthier people.
The nation’s medical leadership, including Dr. Francis S. Collins and Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, then director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, denounced the plan. Referring to Dr. Bhattacharya and his co-authors as “fringe epidemiologists,” Dr. Collins wrote in an email that “there needs to be a quick and devastating takedown of its premises.”
Dr. Collins, who later stepped down as the N.I.H. director to pursue his laboratory research, retired last week in anticipation of Dr. Bhattacharya’s arrival. At Wednesday’s hearing, Senator Pete Ricketts, Republican of Nebraska, introduced Dr. Bhattacharya by praising him for having “great intellectual honesty and courage” to offer an alternative approach to handling the pandemic.
