Senate GOP Confirms Trump Health Nominees In Major MAHA Win

The Senate confirmed two of President Donald Trump’s health nominees Tuesday evening, largely along party lines, in a win for the ‘Make America Healthy Again’ movement.

Senators voted 53-47 to confirm Jay Bhattacharya to lead the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The Senate approved Marty Makary’s nomination to lead the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) during a vote of 56 to 44. Democratic New Hampshire Sens. Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen and Democratic Senate Whip Dick Durbin joined with Senate Republicans to confirm Makary.

Bhattacharya and Makary will oversee departments under Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. They said they are committed to working with him to implement ‘Make America Healthy Again’ policy priorities.

Bhattacharya, a professor of health policy at Stanford University School of Medicine, stressed five priorities during his confirmation hearing: Focusing on chronic disease; tackling the reproducibility crisis in science; establishing a culture of free speech and diversity of viewpoints; recommitting to innovative breakthroughs over incremental progress by powerful incumbent scientists; and introducing regulation of risky research that poses the risk of a pandemic.

“I love the NIH, but post-pandemic, American biomedical sciences are at a crossroads,” Bhattacharya said during his confirmation hearing on March 5. “A November 2024 Pew study reported that only 26% of the American public had ‘a great deal of confidence’ in scientists to act in the public’s best interest; 23% have not too much or no confidence at all.”

“The NIH can and must solve the current crisis of scientific data reliability, and under my leadership, if confirmed, it will do so,” Bhattacharya added.

Bhattacharya cleared the Senate HELP Committee during a vote of 12 to 11, along party lines, on March 13.

“The NIH needs a leader that will restore Americans’ trust in public health institutions and find unbiased solutions to Americans’ most challenging health problems,” Republican Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, chairman of the Senate HELP Committee, said in a statement. “Dr. Bhattacharya is ready to take on this responsibility and implement President Trump’s vision to Make America Healthy Again.”