from Your News:
The head of the National Institutes of Health said the Trump administration has paused all research that could qualify as gain-of-function and will not pursue community lockdowns in future public health emergencies.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
The new director of the National Institutes of Health said Friday that all gain-of-function research has been halted and that the Trump administration will not support lockdowns during future pandemics, marking a sharp policy shift from approaches associated with the tenure of former NIH leadership.
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Speaking in an interview reported by Just the News, Jay Bhattacharya said the agency has paused every project that could fall near the definition of gain-of-function research, a controversial area of science that involves altering pathogens to study potential future threats.
“As far as the NIH, we’ve paused every single project that even is anywhere within the vicinity of something that could be gain of function, and the White House is working on a policy … that will make it so that it never happens again,” Bhattacharya told Just the News. “Nowhere in the United States Government will we invest in a project that poses a risk of catastrophic harm to the American people ever again.”
Gain-of-function research has drawn scrutiny for years because it seeks to enhance viruses or bacteria to better understand how they might evolve, raising concerns about accidental release. The practice was paused during the Obama administration and later resumed in 2017 under NIH leadership during the tenure of Anthony Fauci. Federal agencies, including the FBI, have said a laboratory leak in Wuhan, China, may have been the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic, a theory that intensified debate over such research.
Bhattacharya said policies in place during the Biden administration left room for risky projects to proceed. He said the NIH has now imposed a clear standard requiring comprehensive risk assessments for any research approaching that category.
“What we’re doing is we’re saying there has to be a comprehensive risk assessment of every single project that has anywhere close to the vicinity of being dangerous gain of function,” he said. “And if it’s dangerous gain of function, the answer is, ‘No, you can’t do it.’”
He said the NIH’s approach is expected to serve as a model for a broader, government-wide framework now being finalized by the White House. According to Bhattacharya, dozens of grants have already been paused pending review by a new independent oversight board once the policy is formalized.
Beyond research policy, Bhattacharya said the administration has no interest in repeating lockdown measures used during the COVID-19 pandemic. “I think I can tell you that the appetite for lockdowns in this administration is basically zero,” he said, adding that the NIH will not advocate for such measures again.
