Hearings to examine modernizing the National Institutes of Health, focusing on faster discoveries an... Show more Hearings to examine modernizing the National Institutes of Health, focusing on faster discoveries and more cures. Show less

Cassidy, Bill: Labor and pensions will please come to order The National Institutes of Health funds more than 50,000 biomedical research projects a year More than any other institution in the world in an I NIH is careful to say public institution But it's hard for me to imagine that it's not more than any institution These investments drive life-saving advances addressing chronic disease Curing cancers treating other conditions affecting millions of Americans and people worldwide I'm a physician who treated patients in my medical practice for over 25 years I've seen the power of NIH driven innovation to save lives and I've seen the tragedy when a patient suffers and Dies from a disease for which there is no treatment and everybody in this room has seen that tragedy and We don't wish to see more of it For decades Republicans and Democrats supported the NIH mission now just about every 10 years Congress considers NIH legislation in 2006 we passed the NIH Reform Act empowering the director to advance science Through the Common Fund and better oversee all 27 institutes and centers in 2016 we passed the 21st Century Cures Act historic legislation Accelerating large-scale research bringing treatments and cures to Americans Well now that if my math's right, it's been 10 10 and now it's 10 again. It is now 2026 once more we are on schedule to strengthen NIH and American leadership in biomedical research Now putting down partisan jerseys working together to improve families health We in Congress and this committee can do this. to how to modernize the agency To make it better able to fulfill its mission and deliver more life-saving cures to those who desperately need By the way if you're dying You're desperate and we always have to have that perspective somebody watching on C-SPAN right now is dying and Looking to this hearing to give her to give him hope for the future If we just keep that in front of us, it will give us a seriousness of purpose in our white paper We consider how to improve the NIH grant review process an application process to help researchers who are applying for NIH funding move away from risk-averse behaviors and Fund more big ideas and fewer incremental experiments and our current director is all on board with that Secondly how can the NIH intramural program with its in-house scientists laboratories and research hospital Better complement research happening at universities How can intra and extramural scientists better work together tackling complex problems sharing resources and expertise? Any scientist should be able to leverage NIH technology and the Clinical Center in the same way that a physics professor Can use a particle wherever that physics professor is across the nation can use a particle accelerator funded by the Department of Energy This would allow genius at a small university to access the equipment to allow her genius to shine to shine through as Opposed to being thwarted by the lack of the equipment she needs in order to prove her theory We have mid-career scientists who feel their careers are stagnating because they don't work at a university in San Francisco or Boston Those are great universities, but there's a lot of bright people out there We need their input if we're going to maximize the potential of the NIH Next how can we harness the power of AI to make findings from all studies be they positive or negative More easily accessible so that the scientist doesn't go down does not go down a blind alleyway that others have explored But because it was a negative study It just wasn't published and they would not know that it's a blind alleyway And by the way every now and then at the end of a blind alleyway you find something that points you in the right direction Finally Congress must strengthen trust in federally funded research by ensuring that the NIH funds high-quality well-constructed experiments particularly of research Conducted in other countries in a way that does not add unnecessary Administrative burden upon others upon upon the researcher Dr. Bhattacharya Thanks for coming before the committee to discuss the agency's efforts and how Congress can assist Since your confirmation you've brought fresh ideas and a willingness to rethink how NIH operates Which will strengthen the agency in the long run now But we must acknowledge recent actions at NIH have created uncertainty within the within the American research enterprise and Potentially undermine the agency's ability to serve Now right now. I'm just channeling for just a moment. I'm going to be the channel From folks I've heard from Republicans and Democrats on this committee of her concerns about grant cancellations and the message that those cancellations and The lack of transparency around them have sent to the broader innovation community Last year NIH terminated more than a thousand awards amounting to seven hundred and twenty one million dollars Among were 58 projects on Alzheimer's 99 on HIV AIDS and 97 related to life-saving vaccines We've spoken about this, but I look forward to hearing your comments. It even appears to have canceled six projects Biological differences between women and men which I thought was a priority for President Trump Beyond NIH the Department of Health and Human Services last year announced the cancellation of roughly 500 million dollars in Within the last two weeks Moderna announced it would no longer invest in late-stage clinical trials for vaccines using MRNA technology now this technology was advanced through NIH partnerships it enabled President Trump's operation warp speed an historic achievement bringing a vaccine from Conception to being administered within 10 or 11 months saving millions of lives and reopening economies worldwide Losing this critical tool in our defense against future pandemics Puts our national security and an individual's personal health security at risk. I Say this as a strong conservative. We need taxpayer dollars to research To help families not to have it subject to political ideology to political ideology which masquerades as science. This includes correcting progressive Biden-era actions that coerced scientists into including DEI language in thousands of NIH-funded grants even when it had zero scientific relevance and was a waste of money and certainly did not make Americans healthier. But we can get rid of DEI without upending life-saving research and America's biomedical leadership. Canceling critical investments that have long enjoyed bipartisan support erodes trust and makes substantive reforms less likely. Dr. Bhattacharya, this is an opportunity for you to address these concerns, to tell us about your path forward which I've been very impressed with. I want to and I think we want to be a good partner in this. the ability, the opportunity, the challenge to unleash American innovation to solve our biggest health challenges. NIH and Congress must work together to meet the moment and to improve Americans' health. The families, the patients, the desperate person watching is counting on us. With that, I recognize Senator Sanders.