Dr. Jay Bhattacharya was confirmed Tuesday night by the Senate in a party-line vote to lead the National Institutes of Health.
The Senate voted 53-47 to confirm Bhattacharya with all Republicans supporting his nomination and every Democrat voting against confirming the Stanford School of Medicine medical professor. Bhattacharya has promised to bring more accountability to the NIH, which oversees tens of billions of dollars in federal grant dollars.
“The mission of the NIH is to address the health needs the American people have and to expand life expectancy of the American people. And we have not achieved that. It’s flatlined,” Bhattacharya said during his confirmation hearing earlier this month before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee.
Bhattacharya widely rose to prominence during the COVID pandemic, when he was a sharp critic of the government-imposed…
