As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to return to the White House after expressing plans to overhaul the federal public health infrastructure, National Institutes of Health leaders launched a yearlong project to rework the organization's mission and structure.
NIH Director Monica Bertagnolli on Tuesday told a panel of institute directors chosen for an internal review process that rebuilding trust in the organization post-COVID pandemic is a top priority, the Washington Examiner reported.
"Trust has to be earned, and it has to be earned every single day," Bertagnolli said during the public event. "And the ways that you earn trust are, first and foremost, delivering what people need, really moving the needle on health problems that are plaguing people, and making it very clear and transparent as to why and how all of the results that come out of the NIH help to achieve that."
The NIH Scientific Management Review Board convenes every seven years to reevaluate the institute's organizational structure, and set priorities for the 27 centers that make up the agency.
Discussion among NIH panel members included antivaccination sentiments and the debate over water fluoridation, the Examiner said.
Bertagnolli disagreed with the idea that the institutes and centers comprising NIH should be consolidated for efficiency or better collaboration.
"Before I came to NIH, I bought into 'Oh, it's a whole bunch of silos, and nobody's working together. And you know, wouldn't it be great if you just rolled a few together because then there'd be more collaboration.' Absolutely the opposite," Bertagnolli said.
NIH, which is part of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), has been under increased scrutiny since the COVID pandemic.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, former director of NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was the top U.S. infectious disease expert until leaving the government in 2022. He testified before a House panel in June and answered questions about the credibility of NIH.
Before Trump was reelected, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., said he had been promised "control" over key public health and agriculture agencies if the former president won the election.
During an appearance at the Genius Network Annual Event in Scottsdale, Arizona, Kennedy said the incoming Trump administration should "act fast" to implement massive changes at NIH, including replacing as many as 600 people at the federal agency.
"We need to act fast, and we want to have those people in place on Jan. 20, so that on Jan. 21, 600 people are going to walk into offices at NIH and 600 people are going to leave," Kennedy said.
Early last week, House Republicans began an investigation regarding the attempts of a youth transgender medicine physician to suppress the results from an NIH-funded study on puberty blockers' mental health effects due to political reasons.
Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, medical director for the Center for Transyouth Health and Development at Children's Hospital Los Angeles, claimed she had been delaying the publication of the study's results because she feared they would be used by critics of minors' transgender medicine.
Charlie McCarthy ✉
Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
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