\u201cFor staff across the National Institutes of Health (NIH), we dissent to Administration policies that undermine the NIH mission, waste public resources, and harm the health of Americans and people across the globe,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n
The letter is an extraordinary rebuke of the Trump administration\u2019s actions against the NIH, which include: terminating hundreds of grants funding scientific and biomedical research<\/a>; firing more than 1,000 employees this year; and moving to end billions in funds to partner institutions overseas, a move current and former NIH workers say will harm research on rare cancers and infectious diseases, as well as research that aims to minimize tobacco use and related chronic illnesses, among other areas.<\/p>\n Some NIH workers signed their names publicly, openly daring to challenge a president who has sought to purge\u00a0the government of employees he views as disloyal to him. Others signed anonymously.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s about the harm that these policies are having on research participants and American public health, and global public health,\u201d said Jenna Norton, who works at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, one of NIH\u2019s 27 institutes. \u201cThere are research participants who generously decide to donate their time and literal pieces of their body, with the understanding that that service is going to help advance research for diseases that they are living with and help the next person who comes along with that disease.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThese policies are preventing us from delivering on the promise we made to them and honoring the commitment that they made, and putting them at risk,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The workers wrote that they hope Bhattacharya welcomes their criticisms given his vows to prioritize \u201cacademic freedom\u201d<\/a> and to respect dissenting views as leader of the NIH, which is based in Bethesda, Maryland. Its authors called it the \u201cBethesda Declaration\u201d \u2014 a play on the controversial \u201cGreat Barrington Declaration\u201d that Bhattacharya co-authored during the covid-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n Bhattacharya\u2019s declaration advocated against lockdown measures and proposed that widespread immunity against covid could be achieved by allowing healthy people to get infected with the virus and instituting protective measures only for medically vulnerable people. It was criticized at the time by Francis Collins, then-director of the NIH, who called Bhattacharya and his co-authors \u201cfringe epidemiologists,\u201d according to emails<\/a> the American Institute for Economic Research obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.<\/p>\n In their letter, NIH workers demanded that Bhattacharya restore grants that were \u201cdelayed or terminated for political reasons.\u201d Those grants funded a range of projects, including those addressing Alzheimer\u2019s disease, ways to boost vaccination rates, and efforts to combat health disparities or health misinformation.<\/p>\n \u201cAcademic freedom should not be applied selectively based on political ideology. To achieve political aims, NIH has targeted multiple universities with indiscriminate grant terminations, payment freezes for ongoing research, and blanket holds on awards regardless of the quality, progress, or impact of the science,\u201d the NIH workers wrote.<\/p>\n The funding terminations, they said, \u201cthrow away years of hard work and millions of dollars,\u201d \u201crisk participant health,\u201d and \u201cdamage hard-earned public trust, counter to your stated goal to improve trust in NIH.\u201d<\/p>\n In an emailed comment, Bhattacharya said, \u201cThe Bethesda Declaration has some fundamental misconceptions about the policy directions the NIH has taken in recent months, including the continuing support of the NIH for international collaboration. Nevertheless, respectful dissent in science is productive. We all want the NIH to succeed.\u201d<\/p>\n The NIH\u2019s nearly $48 billion budget makes it the world\u2019s largest public funder of scientific research. Its work has led to countless scientific discoveries that have helped improve health and save lives around the globe. But it hasn\u2019t been without controversies, including instances of research misconduct<\/a> and not effectively monitoring<\/a> grant awards and the related research.<\/p>\n Researchers and some states have sued NIH and HHS over the grant cuts. An April 3 deposition by NIH official Michelle Bulls said Rachel Riley, a senior adviser at HHS who is part of the Department of Government Efficiency created by executive order, provided NIH officials lists of grants to terminate and language for termination notices. Elon Musk, the world\u2019s richest person, led DOGE through May.<\/p>\n Norton has worked at the NIH as a federal employee or contractor for about a decade. She said the current administration\u2019s policies are \u201cdefinitely unethical and very likely illegal,\u201d listing a string of developments \u00a0in recent months. They include terminating studies early and putting participating patients at risk because they have had to abruptly stop taking medications, and holding up research that would predominantly or exclusively recruit participants from minority races and ethnicities, who have historically been underrepresented in medical research.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re saying that doing studies exclusively on Black Americans to try to develop interventions that work for that population, or interventions that are culturally tailored to Hispanic-Latino populations \u2014 that that kind of research can\u2019t go forward is extremely problematic,\u201d Norton said. \u201cAnd, as a matter of fact, studies that over-recruit from white people have been allowed to go forward.\u201d<\/p>\n The NIH workers also demanded that Bhattacharya reinstate workers who were dismissed under recent mass firings and allow research that is done in partnership with institutions in foreign countries \u201cto continue without disruption.\u201d The NIH works with organizations around the globe to combat major public health issues, including types of cancer, tobacco-related illnesses, and HIV.<\/p>\n In addition to the firing of probationary workers, NIH fired 1,200 civil servants as part of a rapid \u201creduction in force\u201d at federal health agencies. During a May 19 town hall meeting with NIH staff, a recording of which was obtained by KFF Health News, Bhattacharya said the decisions about RIFs \u201chappened before I got here. I actually don\u2019t have any transparency into how those decisions were made.\u201d<\/p>\n He started at NIH on April 1, the day many workers at NIH and other agencies were told they were fired. Other workers have been fired since Bhattacharya took the helm \u2014 nearly all the National Cancer Institute\u2019s communications staff were fired in early May, three former employees told KFF Health News.<\/p>\n The letter is the latest salvo in a growing movement by scientists and others against the Trump administration\u2019s actions. In addition to in-person protests outside HHS headquarters and elsewhere, some former employees are organizing patients to get involved.<\/p>\n Peter Garrett, who led the National Cancer Institute\u2019s communications work, has created an advocacy nonprofit called Patient Action for Cancer Research. The aim is to engage patients \u201cin the conversation and federal funding and science policymaking,\u201d he said in an interview.<\/p>\n His group aims to get patients and their relatives to speak out about how federal cancer research affects them directly, he said \u2014 a \u201cguerrilla lobbying\u201d effort to put the issue squarely before members of Congress. Garrett said he retired early from the cancer institute because of concerns about political interference.<\/p>\n Career officials routinely work under both Republican and Democratic presidents. It is par for the course for their priorities and assignments to evolve when a new president, Cabinet secretaries, and other political appointees take over. Usually, those changes occur without much protest.<\/p>\n This time, workers said the upheaval and harm done to the NIH is so extensive that they felt they had no choice but to protest.<\/p>\n In 11 years at NIH, Norton said, \u201cI\u2019ve never seen anything that comes anywhere near this.\u201d<\/p>\n In the June 9 letter, the workers said, \u201cMany have raised these concerns to NIH leadership, yet we remain pressured to implement harmful measures.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not about our jobs,\u201d said one NIH worker who signed the letter anonymously. \u201cIt is about humanity. It is about the future.\u201d<\/p>\n Senior correspondent Arthur Allen contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n We\u2019d like to speak with current and former personnel from the Department of Health and Human Services or its component agencies who believe the public should understand the impact of what\u2019s happening within the federal health bureaucracy. Please message KFF Health News on Signal at (415) 519-8778 or get in touch here<\/a><\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n KFF Health News<\/a> is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF\u2014an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF<\/a>.<\/p>\n![](\"http:\/\/www.dangeladvertising.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/NIH-Bhattacharya-scaled.jpg\")
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