CONFIRMATION HEARING: NIH Director nominee Dr. Jay Bhattacharya testifies before the Senate
What this video covers
This is the full replay — just over two hours — of Bhattacharya’s March 5, 2025 confirmation hearing before the Senate HELP Committee, carried by Diya TV, America’s South Asian broadcast network. For viewers who want the primary record rather than recaps, this is it: opening statements, Bhattacharya’s testimony, and the full question-and-answer session with senators.
The hearing’s through-lines, per contemporary coverage: Bhattacharya promised an NIH that funds replication studies, supports early-career scientists, welcomes dissenting views, and tackles chronic disease alongside infectious disease. When Sen. Bernie Sanders pressed him on discouraging junk-food advertising to children, Bhattacharya said he would be willing to work with him on it. When Sen. Andy Kim raised vaccine safety, Bhattacharya acknowledged that mRNA vaccine-induced myocarditis has disproportionately affected young men — a statement that, as commentators noted, would have been incendiary two years earlier but drew no pushback in the room.
On the agency’s own research, he took his hardest line on gain-of-function work: “The NIH, I don’t think, should be doing any risky research that has the potential to cause a pandemic.” And notably, as KFF Health News observed, not a single senator challenged him on the lockdown, mask, or mandate positions that had made him a lightning rod in 2021.
Key points
- Bhattacharya pledged replication studies, support for young researchers, and a culture where “dissent is the very essence of science.”
- He told Sanders he would work with him on curbing junk-food advertising to children.
- He acknowledged mRNA vaccine-related myocarditis in young men when pressed on vaccine safety — unchallenged by the committee.
- He said the NIH should not fund risky research with pandemic potential, staking out his gain-of-function position.
- No senator confronted him on his 2020-2021 lockdown or mask stances, marking how far the political ground had shifted.
- Critics outside the room — mainstream public-health experts cited by outlets like Medscape — continued to fault his Great Barrington record as the hearing proceeded.