(CNN) — Twenty-seven minutes into a town hall with staff last week, US National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya acknowledged that he was going to get into uncomfortable territory.
“This one’s a tough one for me,” Bhattacharya told the audience of researchers and other NIH employees gathered in an auditorium at the biomedical research agency’s headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland, last Monday, before introducing one of the most divisive topics in science.
“It’s possible that the [Covid-19] pandemic was caused by research conducted by human beings,” he said, according to a video obtained by CNN. “And it’s also possible that the NIH partly sponsored that research. And if that’s true – ”
At that point, Bhattacharya paused to watch as dozens of NIH staffers stood and filed out of the auditorium.
“It’s nice to have free speech,” he said with a smile. “Welcome, you guys.”
Bhattacharya then persisted.
“If it’s true that we sponsored research that caused a pandemic – and if you look at polls of the American people, that’s what most people believe, and I looked at the scientific evidence; I believe it – what we have to do is make sure that we do not engage in research that’s any risk of posing any risk to human populations,” he said.
The walkout was a gentle protest, one Bhattacharya – a former Stanford professor of health policy and economics who frequently claimed to have been censored during the Covid-19 pandemic for communicating views in opposition with those held by US scientific leadership at the time – referred to later in the town hall as “silent dissent.”
It represented not just disagreement with – and dismay over – Bhattacharya’s assertion that the NIH may bear some responsibility for the pandemic, which killed more than 7 million people worldwide, by sponsoring so-called gain-of-function research that created the SARS-CoV-2 virus that then leaked from a lab. That’s a view not shared by a large number of expert virologists and epidemiologists, who think it’s more likely the virus emerged via a spillover from animals.
It was also a preplanned protest over working conditions; the staffers just chose to leave a little earlier than intended, as Bhattacharya made those comments, some told CNN. The walkout was designed to communicate frustrations over scientists’ inability to do their jobs under the second Trump administration, they said.
“We’d been trying to meet with Dr. Bhattacharya as members of the union to discuss issues we’ve had with working conditions that prevented us from doing our jobs and research,” said Dr. Kaitlyn Hajdarovic, a postdoctoral researcher at NIH. Like others who spoke with CNN, she emphasized that she was speaking in a personal capacity and as a member of a union representing about 5,000 early-career researchers at the NIH.
Disruptions to research
Hajdarovic and others described issues obtaining materials for research because the people who do the purchasing had been dismissed; the firings and rehirings of scientist colleagues; the fear of a proposed 40% cut to the NIH budget; and general chaos and unpredictability that are disruptive to their day-to-day jobs.
“We were trying to use this walkout as a way to get a sit-down meeting with Dr. Bhattacharya,” said Dr. Matt Manion, another NIH postdoctoral researcher and union member. “We’ve asked at least twice since he took over the role.”
The union members, joined by others at the agency, had planned to leave the town hall at the start of Bhattacharya’s time answering pre-submitted questions, added Dr. Matthew Brown, a third union member and postdoctoral fellow. Bhattacharya and his chief of staff, Seana Cranston, noted several times that about 1,200 questions had been submitted and that they’d chosen the “hard ones” to answer.
“Having these sort of preplanned town halls is not a substitute for actually sitting down with scientists who will do the research that improves the health of the American public,” Brown said.
In response to CNN’s request for comment, a spokesman for HHS said, “at Monday’s town hall, the NIH Director addressed staff openly and took unscripted questions from the audience. The individuals who walked out had the opportunity to engage directly and voice their concerns constructively. Instead, they chose to walk out, seemingly driven more by political motives because of their dissent with this administration.”
Brown countered that the group’s dissent “is based on the tremendous damage that has been done to taxpayer-funded biomedical research over the past four months. Protecting our research into diseases like cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s deserves more than a short question and answer session.”
‘Asking for another pandemic’
Still, although the walkout was planned for a different reason, the gain-of-function comments didn’t go over well. One NIH scientist tied the comments to a new policy that says the agency will prohibit foreign subaward grants, or research funding arrangements in which a grant recipient passes on some of the funding to foreign collaborators; the White House budget proposal for fiscal year 2026 cited NIH’s funding of research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology as part of its reasoning for a proposed nearly $18 billion cut to the NIH’s budget.
“The notion that you can use the lab leak theory as justification to cancel all foreign subawards is ridiculous,” said the scientist, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal. “They are doing it purely for political and/or ideological reasons.
“Whether or not you agree with the theory, foreign subawards support research to prevent the next pandemic,” the scientist added. “Canceling them all at once with little to no warning is asking for another pandemic.”
A spokesman for HHS said, “NIH is transitioning from foreign subawards to foreign subprojects to ensure that all recipients of American taxpayer dollars—whether domestic or international—are held to the same rigorous standards of oversight, accountability, and transparency.”
There were other points of tension during the town hall, too.
At one point, Bhattacharya took a previously submitted question about the NIH’s approach to diversity, equity and inclusion, an issue the Trump administration has targeted, terminating a large number of research grants.
“The question is, how should we define health disparities research in a way that clearly separates it from DEI while continuing to address the costly consequences of US health disparities?” Cranston prompted Bhattacharya.
Bhattacharya responded that he has, “in my own research, focused on vulnerable populations, and very often that means minority populations.”
But, he continued, “there’s been a line of research supported by the NIH that I don’t actually fundamentally believe is scientific, that is ideological in nature.”
To provide an example, Bhattacharya cited redlining, or racial discrimination in housing and lending practices.
“You could imagine a study looking at the effect of redlining on the access to health care for people, right? That’s a completely legitimate kind of study,” Bhattacharya said. “That would be a, I think, completely legitimate kind of study for the NIH to support.”
A member of the audience then spoke up. “Then why is NIH terminating them?” she said.
“I’m sorry, the NIH is not terminating those studies,” Bhattacharya responded. “I want to make a distinction –”
“Oh, I disagree!” the audience member shot back as colleagues applauded.
“Let me finish,” Bhattacharya said. “So the other kind of studies, for instance, what I want to distinguish from is something like ‘structural racism causes poor health in minority populations.’ ”
“What do you think redlining is?” the audience member said.
“The problem there is that it’s not a scientific hypothesis,” Bhattacharya argued. “You can’t, in principle, think of a way to test that hypothesis where, in principle, you could falsify it.”
‘Ridiculous’ 5-points email
The director also told NIH staff that he’d arrived in the job the day of mass dismissals as part of the HHS’ Reduction in Force, or RIF, April 1, and that he hadn’t had a say in them.
HHS said it cut 1,200 employees from the NIH.
“I actually don’t have any transparency in how those decisions were made,” Bhattacharya said. “And I was quite upset about that. It would be nice to have had some say.”
Bhattacharya said he’s tried to make conditions better since he arrived based on feedback from employees, including by turning purchasing cards back on and enabling travel to conferences. He also suggested that he’d put a stop to a requirement that employees send an email each week detailing five things they’d accomplished.
“I heard you guys have to do five points every week,” Bhattacharya said. “That was ridiculous. I’m really flat proud that we don’t have to have some of the best scientists in the world tell me what they did last week with five points. That made no sense.”
The audience applauded that. And later in the program, Bhattacharya took a few questions from the audience that didn’t appear planned. To one, which was inaudible on the video CNN reviewed, Bhattacharya responded, “No gloves? … That should not be happening. We’ll get that fixed.”
A week after the town hall, the union members said they still hadn’t heard from Bhattacharya’s office about scheduling a meeting.
