Jay Bhattacharya on dangerous gain-of-function research: warns against

Bhattacharya warns against dangerous gain-of-function research and pledged at his nomination to “vigorously regulate” it, calling such research a program that “could cause another pandemic.” At the February 3, 2026 Senate HELP hearing, he assured Sen. Roger Marshall and the committee that NIH had ended support for dangerous gain-of-function work. In his written nomination testimony, he referenced the lab-leak assessment favored by the FBI, CIA, and Department of Energy, according to medicaleconomics.com’s summary. For accuracy: Sen. Marshall’s assertion at the hearing that COVID-19 resulted from NIH-funded gain-of-function research is Marshall’s claim, not Bhattacharya’s.

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