NIH and Acting CDC Director Bhattacharya Faces House Grilling on Budget and Vaccines

NIH Director and acting CDC chief Jay Bhattacharya is scheduled to testify Tuesday morning before a House Appropriations subcommittee, with the agency’s budget on paper but vaccine policy and his dual role expected to dominate questioning. The hearing follows a Senate HELP Committee session last month where Bhattacharya said he had 'not seen a study that suggests any single vaccine causes autism,' a notable break from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s long‑standing claims linking vaccines to autism. Lawmakers are likely to press him on how he will run CDC after taking over in February from Jim O’Neill, a Silicon Valley figure with no public‑health background, and on how his past, highly critical stance toward CDC’s Covid‑era decisions will translate into current guidance. The session will also probe how NIH research priorities and CDC policy will be aligned under a single Trump‑appointed official who holds both a medical degree and a Ph.D. in economics and who is now a central counterweight to Kennedy’s more aggressive anti‑vaccine posture inside the administration.