Ensuring NIH funding reaches all regions of the United States, Fact Check Part 8
Bhattacharya claims he’s directing funding to underfunded states, but his policies have the opposite effect
“The key thing is fundamental structural reform, so that we have competition across institutions in different states, essentially introduce a market for those facilities supports separately from the grants, and then have the grants funded, the researchers funded, and the institutions then compete to bring the researchers to their institution to do the research…”
– Jay Bhattacharya, proposing a DEI program for underfunded universities
Welcome back to our fact check series, where we set the record straight on NIH Director Jayanta Bhattacharya’s lies, spoken at a March 17, 2026 Congressional hearing.
Today, we bring you part 8: examining whether Bhattacharya really is distributing funds more evenly across geography. (Spoiler alert! He’s not.) Despite Bhattacharya’s claimed interest in directing funding to underfunded states, Bhattacharya’s policies have actually reduced funding in these states. And even if he weren’t undermining his own stated goal, wouldn’t such a program be DEI? I guess he only wants to “cure” the NIH of DEI when it’s politically expedient.
What Bhattacharya said
In his opening remarks:
“We’ll also develop strategies for greater geographic distribution of funding, which I hope to have a chance to talk about some of these ideas.“
In response to Representative Aderholt on barriers that prevent rural universities from successfully competing for NIH funding:
“The key issue is about a third of our portfolio of extramural research goes to about 20 institutions.... But we have to make investments in those places outside of the top 20.“
In response to Representative Simpson:
“The key thing is fundamental structural reform, so that we have competition across institutions in different states, essentially introduce a market for those facilities supports separately from the grants, and then have the grants funded, the researchers funded, and the institutions then compete to bring the researchers to their institution to do the research. Essentially create a much more sort of competition friendly approach to where the research gets done.”
What actually happened
Bhattacharya glosses over the fact that the NIH has been successfully supporting scientists at less resourced organizations or in rural areas. The National Institute of General Medical Sciences Institutional Development Award (IDeA) program was mandated by Congress in 1993 to build research capacity in states with historically low NIH funding levels. The program has successfully built capacity in underfunded research states, such as Oklahoma and North Dakota. While Bhattacharya claims to want to enhance funding to these states, grant terminations that occurred under his watch have disproportionately impacted states eligible for the IDeA program. An analysis by the American Association of Medical Colleges found that grant terminations under Bhattacharya impacted IDeA states disproportionately, with a 19% drop on average in FY 2025 in IDeA states compared to a 16% drop in general. Because this analysis was conducted before grants were re-instated under Mass vs Kennedy/APHA vs NIH, and very few IDeA states opted into the lawsuit (only Delaware, Hawaii, New Mexico and Rhode Island), this disparity is likely larger.
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About this Blog Series
Through this blog series, recent and current NIH staff (in our personal capacities) are fighting for scientific integrity at the NIH, so science can continue to yield future treatments for our fellow Americans. In these blogs, we are highlighting when Bhattacharya flagrantly mischaracterized, obfuscated, or just plain lied about the state of NIH under oath to members of Congress during the March 17 House Appropriations Committee hearing.
In case you missed it, we recently covered NIH’s ability to spend 2026 funds, the harmful consequences of the rapid transition to multiyear funding, how discriminatory censorship of NIH grants is excluding many Americans from the benefits of science, political interference at the NIH, challenges facing the next generation of scientists, and disruptions in HIV research.
Given your personal history, I assume you understand the game that is being played behind the facade of Anti-DEI.
In the Department of Energy world, especially in the “Genesis Mission” farce that they’re currently peddling before the AI fiasco falls apart (setting up for a Fed bailout of AI players), the Anti-DEI clauses that are flowed down to Primes and subsequently to Educational Institutions are an insidious tool.
These clauses serve multiple purposes. The first being the performative ideological offering to the fascist (there’s that term again) base under the guise of “combating racism” against the dominant group. The clauses also suspend a sword over multiple levels of Fed Contractors, making their continued viability in the Federal system contingent upon ensuring their subs have scrubbed their systems of anything that might even smell of equity or inclusion. The Fed system has awesome power over contractors. It’s a shame we haven’t witnessed that power truly used until we installed a despotic authoritarian regime.
The third level flow down effect is to redirect contracts to demonstrably inappropriate providers. If the most competent provider has a whiff of “woke” anywhere in their policies and practices, and equity is defined as a priority in contract awards (again, under the banner of combating discrimination against the lillywhite), then Harvard might lose that contract to the College of Jesus-Tech in Bumfuk, Arkansas, regardless whether the CoJT has facilities or staff suitable to deliver on that contract.
The fourth level of fuckery is to diminish the standing of the organization within its traditional community. This is a standard Right Wing (and corporate Dem, to be frank…) tactic against any entity deemed even slightly to the Left of the traditional Status Quo. Force a concession by the individual or organization under the guise of compromise to achieve continued public function (force a University to abandon its equity policies to continue Fed Funding), then disseminate to the progressive base the fact that the individual and/or organization has folded on a key issue important to that base, causing the base to conclude that they have supported a hollow edifice and walk away disillusioned.
Lather, Rinse, Repeat… It works every time.
Either way, the lesson to the general public should be that there are multiple layers underpinning what they see played out in the political theater, each of them somehow worse than what originally enraged them.
My wife and I see this play out across the board, NOAA, DoE (Energy), DoE (Education), DoD (sorry, now degraded… somehow… to DoWAR! you Low-T sissies!).
I and she even invited more cynicism into our life by manufacturing a MPH type of our own who has to deal with a politically motivated and immensely dysfunctional CDC on a daily basis. COVID shifted her career focus away from “Fashion Merchandising” and toward Public Health. We’re both proud of her for her accomplishments, and routinely apologize for throwing her into such an adversarial fray. Oh well…
Thanks again for your efforts. I’m guessing that, similar to my wife and I, you envision a day when this will end and an actual US Public Health system will emerge. I had hoped COVID would precipitate that eventuality, but whatever. Hope remains.
Especially with that El-Sayed victory, but I digress…
All the best.