WASHINGTON — The Senate voted largely along party lines to confirm Marty Makary as the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration and Jay Bhattacharya as director of the National Institutes of Health.
All Republicans backed Bhattacharya in a 53-47 vote, and all Republicans plus three Democrats backed Makary in a 56-44 vote. It’s the conclusion to a smooth confirmation process for Bhattacharya and Makary, who both echoed health secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s promises to make America healthy again during their confirmation hearings in March.
The two Trump picks are assuming leadership of agencies that have been pummeled by workforce cuts and are lagging in morale. Hundreds of probationary FDA employees overseeing medical devices, food, and tobacco were laid off in February. A week later, many were rehired. But the threat of future layoffs and a punishing return-to-work order is making some employees miserable.
At NIH, everyone is on edge amid the pending layoffs, disruptions to grant review, and departures of key leaders. The Trump administration has used NIH funding as a political tool in recent weeks, cutting off research at Columbia University over claims it didn’t adequately address antisemitism and at the University of Pennsylvania for letting a transgender swimmer compete. The administration has also pledged to slash NIH indirect funding that universities use to power scientific research.
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Makary earned rare bipartisan support at the Senate health committee vote earlier in March, with Democratic senators Maggie Hassan (N.H.) and John Hickenlooper (Colo.) joining Republicans. Bhattacharya sailed through the committee vote along party lines. Both nominees faced pressure from senators on the workforce shakeups led by the U.S. DOGE Service, and on their views on vaccines given Kennedy’s history as a prominent vaccine critic.
They toed the line on vaccines, declaring them lifesaving but leaving room for vaccine skepticism. Makary stopped short of recommending them to combat the current measles outbreak. Bhattacharya said he was “convinced” vaccines don’t cause autism, but wouldn’t rule out more studies on the issue.
Both stuck closely to the broader points of Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again agenda, emphasizing their commitments to tackling chronic disease. Makary promised to more harshly scrutinize food additives and revisit potential conflicts of interest on public health advisory panels. Bhattacharya said he would fund chronic disease research and create a culture of free speech and dissent within the agency.
Makary, a pancreatic surgeon at Johns Hopkins, and Bhattacharya, a Stanford health economist, have had similar political trajectories. Both made names for themselves interrogating flaws in the U.S. health care system, and then gained wider notoriety as Covid-19 contrarians. Makary opposed some vaccine and mask mandates, while Bhattacharya co-authored a controversial memo pushing for herd immunity. That rhetoric brought them closer to Kennedy, landing them the top FDA and NIH jobs in the Trump administration.
Colleagues expressed confidence in the two candidates’ abilities to do the jobs and withstand political pressure that may go against science. Critics worry they will continue to be contrarians for contrarians’ sake.
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Makary’s inner circle has already started to take shape, with Jim Traficant, former CEO of communications firm Pinkston, serving as his chief of staff. Pinkston worked on the promotion of Makary’s 2019 book “The Price We Pay.” Grace Graham, who last Congress served as chief health counsel for the House Energy & Commerce Committee, started at the FDA a few weeks ago.
Two center directors, head of food Jim Jones and head of drugs Patrizia Cavazzoni, left before Makary even got there. Jones resigned in protest of the administration’s workforce cuts, and was replaced by food industry lawyer Kyle Diamantas. Cavazzoni left before Trump took office and was replaced by Jacqueline Corrigan-Curay. Both directors are in acting roles.
Several senior officials at NIH also left before Bhattacharya was confirmed, including longtime second-in-command Larry Tabak and Michael Lauer, deputy director of the National Institutes of Health’s extramural research. Genome center director Eric Green left last week.
