NIH director defends FY2026 budget and agency reforms amid bipartisan alarm

Director Jay Bhattacharya, newly confirmed head of the National Institutes of Health, defended the administration's fiscal year 2026 budget request and a package of agency reforms at a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing, saying the changes are intended to prioritize urgent health needs, strengthen oversight of foreign funding, and improve scientific reproducibility.

The hearing chair, Senator Shelley Moore Capito, opened by asking Bhattacharya to explain how the FY2026 request would “continue efforts from NIH to reduce illness, enhance health” and to support research in smaller and rural states. Bhattacharya said he joined the administration’s goals to accelerate innovation by integrating data science, to improve oversight of funding abroad, and to stop what he described as “dangerous gain of function research.” He said the NIH must restore public trust and “mend our relationships with the public” while supporting science that leads to better prevention and treatment.

Why this matters: senators on both sides of the aisle warned that the administration’s budget — which the chair and members repeatedly described as proposing roughly an…