'What Happened To The Money?': John Kennedy Brings The Receipts Questioning Bhattacharya About NIH Grants

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At today's Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) questioned NIH Dir. Dr. Jay Bhattacharya.

Transcript

00:01Thank you. Senator Kennedy.

00:07Doctor, you don't look like Satan to me.

00:11I hope not.

00:13Some of my colleagues have accused you of everything but abandoning your children to wolves.

00:22Do you hate medical research?

00:25I've devoted my life to medical research, Senator.

00:27Do you hate the NIH?

00:28I love the NIH.

00:30I think I said that in my Senate hearing, in my earlier Senate hearing, I think it's the most important biomedical institution in the world.

00:38This budget that we're debating today is the president's budget.

00:42When's the last time Congress took a president's budget and enacted it?

00:48You know, the funny thing is I've gotten, thanks to this process, I've gotten to talk with all of y'all.

00:52When's the last time that happened?

00:54I can't remember.

00:55It's never happened in the history of ever.

00:57I mean, everyone has strong opinions about what should happen, and Congress gets to have a say, and that's a good thing.

01:04There's some changes that need to be made at the NIH, aren't there?

01:09There are.

01:09If I'm the president of the university, and I came to you, the NIH, and said, I need $10 million to research a cure for nephritis,

01:27and I took that $10 million and spent $5 million of it renovating the vice provost home, that would be morally repugnant, wouldn't it?

01:39It would.

01:40If I were a college president and I came to NIH and asked for $20 million to research a cure for dementia,

01:53and I took $5 million of that and used it to buy a yacht for my university, that would be morally repugnant, wouldn't it?

02:05That would, and that's not...

02:07And that's happened before, hasn't it?

02:08That's not hypothetical, alas.

02:11And there's been a lot of talk about the difference between direct costs, spending the money, for example,

02:19on researching cures for nephritis, and indirect costs, overhead.

02:26Harvard, for example, with a $53 billion endowment, spends 69% of its money from NIH on overhead, does it not?

02:39I haven't looked at the latest numbers, but it's definitely in that range.

02:42Yale spends 67.5% on overhead, does it not?

02:47Again, roughly in that range, yes.

02:49So all this money spent on overhead is money that's not being spent on medical research, is that right?

02:56Well, it's for fixed costs of, like, lab space and things, but also sometimes for other things.

03:01So some of it's absolutely necessary.

03:03Well, if I'm the Gates Foundation, and I came to the NIH and said, I don't want money.

03:15I want to give you money.

03:18I want to give you $100 billion.

03:20Yeah.

03:21But you can't spend more than 10% on overhead.

03:26Would the NIH turn it down?

03:29I wouldn't turn it down, no.

03:31In fact, I think that Gates Foundation overhead rates are roughly, again, in that range, 10% to 15%.

03:35Robert Wood Johnson Foundation limits overhead to 15%, is it not?

03:43That's what I understand, something like that.

03:45Now, I want you to think in terms of the American people and the importance of medical research.

03:53What do you think is more important?

03:56And we have finite resources.

03:59And I support giving resources to NIH.

04:02I think NIH does breathtakingly innovative work.

04:08But if you ask the American people, would you rather give money to research cerebrovascular disease,

04:21or would you rather give $142,000 to the Seattle Children's Hospital to study how to use telehealth

04:30to improve access to gender-affirming care?

04:34What do you think the American people would say?

04:36Senator, the NIH should be a non-political organization, non-ideological, addressing the health needs of the American people.

04:41But yet, the NIH also spent $120,000 in a grant to, quote,

04:48develop 3D avatars that help people work through gender dysphoria, end quote.

04:54Did it not?

04:55It did.

04:55And the NIH also spent $2,368,492, gave it to Brown University to study, quote,

05:10improving mental health among the LGBTQ community impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

05:18Did it not?

05:19I think it did.

05:20Although I have to say that we should...

05:22Do you think that's more important than studying chronic lower respiratory disease?

05:27I mean, I think we should address the real health needs of Americans, not divide Americans into...

05:32We have to take into account the real differences in Americans, in the biology of people.

05:38But when we do that, we should do it in a way that really addresses their actual health needs.

05:43No, I'm running out of time.

05:45What we have to do is spend the money on research.

05:48We should.

05:49Absolutely.

05:50It's real simple.

05:51I agree with you, Senator, 100%.

05:53And some universities aren't, and NIH is not calling them on it.

05:58Isn't it a fact that a study showed between 2017 and 2019,

06:05auditors found 137 critical trials funded with taxpayer money involving 41,000 kids,

06:14and they didn't even report the results?

06:17What happened to the money?

06:19Senator, I think that researchers we support have an obligation to share their data publicly

06:24with the American people, no matter what the result is.

06:26Otherwise, it's wasted.

06:28Yeah.

06:28Agreed.

06:29All you want to do is fix NIH, don't you?

06:32I do.

06:32I want to fix all those problems, Senator.

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