WASHINGTON — The Senate health committee voted on Thursday to endorse Marty Makary as Food and Drug Administration commissioner and Jay Bhattacharya as director of the National Institutes of Health.
The committee voted 14-9 to advance Makary, with Democratic senators Maggie Hassan (N.H.) and John Hickenlooper (Colo.) joining Republicans. The vote for Bhattacharaya was 12-11 along party lines. The next step for the nominees is a vote by the full Senate, where a GOP majority all but ensures they will be confirmed.
“The American people’s trust in public health institutions must be restored,” Senate health committee Chairman Bill Cassidy (R-La.) said in remarks before the vote. “Dr. Bhattacharya and Dr. Makary have demonstrated that they are ready to take on this responsibility.”
It’s been a tumultuous few weeks for the FDA and NIH as leaders have grappled with mass firings and other Trump administration efforts to cull the workforce. Hundreds of probationary FDA employees overseeing medical devices, food, and tobacco were laid off in February. A week later, many were rehired.
But a $25,000 buyout offer, a return-to-work order, and the threat of future layoffs may still lead to a diminished agency workforce. Makary and Bhattacharya both largely breezed through Senate confirmation hearings, but they still have their work cut out for them as they work to implement President Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again agenda.
Separately on Thursday, Trump pulled the nomination of Dave Weldon to run the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, hours before Cassidy’s committee was set to question him during a hearing. Cassidy told reporters that Weldon lacked enough support from senators, and declined to say whether he discussed any concerns with Weldon with the White House.
Makary’s confirmation hearing last week went smoothly. He faced mild heat from senators who asked questions about a canceled vaccine advisory committee meeting on flu shots and the U.S. DOGE Service’s efforts to fire employees. He was able to escape blame and assuage concerns by noting he had nothing to do with those decisions, and promising to assess the situation.
The hearing offered little clarity into how Makary would tackle day-to-day challenges as FDA commissioner. He indicated some interest in using real-world data and artificial intelligence to speed product reviews, and streamlining the approval of biosimilars, generics, and over-the-counter drugs to reduce costs.
Instead, the takeaway was Makary’s commitment to Kennedy’s MAHA agenda. He promised to more harshly scrutinize food additives and revisit potential conflicts of interest on public health advisory panels. Makary echoed Kennedy’s commitments to further studying the abortion drug mifepristone, and declared that vaccines save lives but stopped short of recommending them to combat the current measles outbreak.
Bhattacharya also faced questioning about DOGE-led shakeups, including layoffs at NIH and broad cuts to university funding through indirect payments. Like Makary, the Stanford health economist told senators that he believes in the value of vaccinations but would not rule out further federal research to quell vaccine critics.
While those comments earned some frustration from Cassidy, Bhattacharya ultimately saw a positive reception from Senate Republicans after closely hewing the line on the Trump administration’s goals, especially the MAHA movement’s focus on chronic diseases.
Bhattacharya also stopped short of committing to reinstate certain programs, such as grants for LGBTQ+ research, or reversing a cap on indirect payments to universities, leaving research institutions on unsure footing with the NIH.
Makary, a pancreatic surgeon at Johns Hopkins, and Bhattacharya 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.