Jay Bhattacharya on health-outcomes-focused NIH funding: recommends

Bhattacharya says NIH must end “funding the scientific enterprise for the sake of funding science” and instead judge research by whether it improves Americans’ health and longevity, a position he stated in an Epoch Times “American Thought Leaders” interview around February 2026. His reasoning, as he framed it there, is that NIH’s ultimate mission is public health, not the sustenance of the research community: dollars should be accountable to health outcomes — cures, longer lives, healthier lives — rather than to publication counts or institutional momentum. The position underpins much of his tenure’s rhetoric, from the replication push to the chronic-disease prioritization.

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