Senator Murray Slams Outrageous Political Retaliation at NIH, Demands Answers from Trump Administration
Vice Chair Murray in June to NIH Director Bhattacharya: “You just received a letter signed by hundreds of your own staff who believe this administration’s actions risk breaking NIH and the lifesaving work it does. I really hope you heed their warning, and it should go without saying, but I expect none of them to face retaliation for raising those concerns.”
Washington, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA)—Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee and a former chair and senior member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee—released the following statement on the news that the Trump administration has placed on administrative leave a National Institutes of Health (NIH) employee who helped organize The Bethesda Declaration, an open letter signed by nearly five hundred NIH employees in June protesting the Trump administration’s politicization of science and research funding at the NIH.
“The Trump administration is burning down our country’s most important public health agencies from the inside and pushing out anyone who dares to pull the fire alarm. Standing up for science is not a fireable offense and it should be seriously troubling to everyone who wants America to remain the world leader in biomedical research that this administration is not only running the NIH into the ground, but punishing anyone who has the courage to speak up about their concerns. When Director Bhattacharya testified before Congress in June, I made clear that not one employee who signed the Bethesda Declaration should face retaliation—yet that’s exactly what appears to be happening this week.
“If this administration thinks that summarily ousting NIH employees whose only offense is calling on the agency to respect science and academic freedom will go unnoticed, they can think again. I am demanding answers from the Trump Administration and Secretary Kennedy about NIH employees who signed the Bethesda Declaration being placed on administrative leave and any further plans for retaliation—we need answers immediately.”
In June, at a Senate Appropriations Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Subcommittee hearing on the president’s fiscal year 2026 budget request for NIH, Senator Murray grilled NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya on the staff reductions and abrupt termination of clinical trials and grant funding at NIH, and warned him against retaliating against employees who signed The Bethesda Declaration, saying: “You just received a letter signed by hundreds of your own staff who believe this administration’s actions risk breaking NIH and the lifesaving work it does. I really hope you heed their warning, and it should go without saying, but I expect none of them to face retaliation for raising those concerns.”
Senator Murray, a longtime congressional leader on health care, has been fighting back tirelessly against the Trump administration’s efforts to gut lifesaving research at NIH and push out nearly 4,000 skilled scientists, grants administrators, and other employees at the agency. She led the entire Democratic caucus in a letter in February raising the alarm over the Trump administration’s actions to threaten American biomedical research infrastructure and set us back generations. Senator Murray released a statement decrying the Trump administration’s all-out assault on the NIH upon meeting with Bhattacharya in February, and at his nomination hearing in March, she pressed Dr. Bhattacharya on the Trump administration’s efforts to cut billions from biomedical research through an illegal cap on indirect costs, and their unprecedented halt on NIH Advisory Council Meetings, among other issues. She has sent numerous oversight letters and hosted numerous press conferences and events to lay out how the administration’s reckless gutting of HHS is risking Americans health and safety and will set our country back decades, and lifting up the voices of HHS employees who were fired for no reason and through no fault of their own. In September, Senator Murray took to the Senate floor to slam the Trump administration for abandoning the fight to end cancer by cutting vital NIH grants for cancer research and clinical trials.
Throughout her career, Senator Murray has led Congressional efforts to boost biomedical research. Over her years as Chair of the Labor-HHS Appropriations Subcommittee, she secured billions of dollars in increases for biomedical research at NIH, and during her time as Chair of the HELP Committee she established the new ARPA-H research agency as part of her PREVENT Pandemics Act to advance some of the most cutting-edge research in the field. Senator Murray was also the lead Democratic negotiator of the bipartisan 21st Century Cures Act, which delivered a major federal investment to boost NIH research, among many other investments.
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