Science needs dissent: NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya on COVID, autism, and climate change

My friendship with National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Jay Bhattacharya began when he was a professor of medicine, economics, and health research policy at Stanford University, and I was a staff writer at Salon.

To understand how this friendship works—between a democratic socialist and a key figure in President Donald Trump’s second administration—consider one of Bhattacharya’s favorite films, 12 Angry Men. The 1957 courtroom drama (based on an acclaimed 1954 teleplay) celebrates reasoned dissent, open debate, and the power of a single voice challenging consensus, principles Bhattacharya values deeply, especially in science. It is the respect for such principles that has been the foundation of many friendships I have with individuals whom I disagree with politically, such as libertarian commentator Austin Petersen, conservative writer Joe Silverstein (who I befriended after he skewered me in a Fox News article for comparing President Joe Biden to America’s founding fathers) and the late Sen. Joe Lieberman (D–Conn.)

I strongly oppose almost every major aspect of Trump’s agenda, but I refuse to abandon my relationships with those who disagree with me in good faith. In part, this is a sentimental choice, as I value my friendship with Bhattacharya, but it is also a rational one. I recognize that I am fallible, and therefore, like all human beings, I need to listen to intelligent people who will tell me when they think I’m wrong.

A scene in 12 Angry Men depicts the protagonist juror (played by Henry Fonda) rebutting a bilious monologue spewed by Ed Begley’s bigoted juror character. “It’s always difficult to keep personal prejudice out of a thing like this,” Fonda’s Juror 8 explains. “And wherever you run into it, prejudice always obscures the truth.” Bhattacharya and I both believe this applies to all forms of irrational hate.

In July, I spoke with Bhattacharya about whether these ideals can be revived in this country. We also discussed the backlash against him and the other authors of the Great Barrington Declaration (an issue on which I have changed my original opinion), the importance of protecting dissent within institutions, and our disagreements over the current administration’s policies regarding autism and climate change.

Rozsa: In 2007, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote an essay about how his uncle, President John F. Kennedy, wanted to campaign with Republican presidential nominee Sen. Barry Goldwater (R–Ariz.) during the 1964 election, holding a series of town halls to show that people with different ideologies could discuss issues respectfully. Do you believe America can return to that today?

Bhattacharya: I do. You and I are living proof of this. We probably share somewhat different political ideas, but it’s been really interesting and fun to work together on our common interests. I still remember fondly the essay we wrote after the assassination attempt on President Trump, where we worked to say, “Look, this is a time for the country to come together. This is a time for us to look at the courage of the folks who were defending the president, and the president himself, as well as to understand the underlying dynamics that lead people to such passion.” That was really fun to work together with you on that. Yes, it definitely is still possible. The U.S. is such a great country. It really is. It looks like we’re divided, but really, I think fundamentally, we share so much of the same values.

You and some of your colleagues were persecuted after co-authoring The Great Barrington Declaration in 2020, which rejected COVID-19 lockdowns and promoted a focused protection for high-risk groups. As a disability rights advocate, I’ve researched how disabled people were harmed—both physically and mentally—by the lockdowns. Many children lost progress in their education as well. What lesson do you think critics of yours should take away from this?

Because lockdowns are more than just an epidemiological tool—they are a society-wide abrogation of our fundamental social compact—we need conversations. The ideology of the lockdown is essentially that we need to treat our fellow human beings as a mere biohazard, right? That’s a radical change in our normal social relations. If we’re going to have discussions about those things, we have to listen to each other. The fundamental problem was the way that folks who were in power dealt with these issues—they did not accept any possibility of good-faith disagreement.

I want to make sure that I don’t fall into that trap. I want to make sure that I always leave open the possibility that I’m wrong, and that folks who are telling me that I’m not getting things right do so from good faith disagreement.

As the director of the NIH, you are now in charge of a lot of this process. How do you plan on doing things differently? How have you learned from your predecessors’ mistakes?

I believe very fundamentally in collaboration. A few weeks ago, there was a group of NIH workers—scientists and others—who wrote something called the Bethesda Declaration. They had several criticisms of some of the policies that have been put in place since January 20. Criticisms of me also. I kept getting asked by reporters if I was planning to retaliate against them. I thought to myself, “This is ridiculous.” Why would I retaliate against colleagues who, though I disagree with them about some of the things that they were saying, care very deeply about the NIH and want the NIH to succeed?

Just this past week, I had a roundtable where I publicly invited the leaders who wrote the Bethesda Declaration, and we had a conversation together. I thought it was quite good, quite constructive. We didn’t end up agreeing on everything, but there’s stuff I thought they actually got right, and we’re going to work to implement some of it.

You’ve referred to what you call “Me Too” research, saying there’s a climate where everyone has to echo everyone else lest their careers suffer. Am I correct in sensing that you want to change the culture from one where everyone feels like they need to toe the line?

Absolutely. I think groupthink is a real danger in science. If you just echo what everyone else believes, it may advance your scientific career, but that points to a problem in the culture of science. We ought to value truth, right? If we can have a culture of truth, then we’re not trying to destroy a scientist simply for the fact that they don’t agree with the consensus. We shouldn’t be destroying a scientist simply for being wrong. What we want is a culture where people can discuss and disagree about ideas without trying to destroy the person for having those ideas. There should not be an orthodoxy in science that determines truth. 

How do you explain to the public that part of a scientist’s job is to be wrong? Part of their job is to try new things and new ideas and make mistakes so that they can get things right, isn’t it?

I think a lot of the problem is this mythology around scientists we all admire: Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr. They got some pretty fundamental things right. Someone like Einstein, he got some fundamental things wrong. If you go back, you can look and see that he had this idea of this cosmological constant. He had thought down the wrong path, but it was a constructive failure. It led to all kinds of great physics.

The fact that scientists get things wrong just indicates that they’re thinking and they’re probing and they’re trying to understand things that the universe, the physical reality, makes complicated. So, of course, scientists will sometimes get things wrong. What the culture of science needs to do is reward exploration and then reward truth. If someone is in good faith engaging in scientific discussion and scientific thinking, and they get it wrong, that’s okay. 

It reminds me of Thomas Edison, when he invented the light bulb after thousands of unsuccessful attempts, and someone asked him how he kept failing. He answered, I didn’t fail. I just found 2,000 ways not to invent a light bulb.

Exactly! 

Before you’re too impressed, I only know that quote because of the Nicolas Cage movie, National Treasure. But I’m curious, is there something from pop culture—a movie, a TV show, a book, a song—that really speaks to your support of free speech and free debate?

Have you ever seen the movie 12 Angry Men?

I love 12 Angry Men!

The jury just wants to go home. They understand that they’re deliberating about a case that will mean whether somebody spends their life in jail. They want to take it seriously, but they’re just tired and they want to go home. Then you’ve got one juror who’s saying, “This just doesn’t make sense.” Slowly, through reason, he convinces all the other 11 jurors, and they finally learn a lot about people that are very, very different from each other. They come together in their reasoning, together in their support. I love that movie. I love the idea of it. I think science is kind of that way.

Let’s go to an area where we disagree. One area where some liberals disagree with the NIH currently is autism policy. I’m autistic, as you and I have discussed, and this is something I care about deeply. Two specific examples of concern are the cutting of funding for autism-related research and RFK Jr. referring to autism as an epidemic, since a lot of autistic people shy away from language that describes autism as a disease. What are your thoughts about engaging in conversation with those critics? 

I just looked at the portfolio that we have on autism research at the NIH. It’s, I think, around 700 discrete studies that we are currently funding. It’s a really, really wide-ranging portfolio. I’ve also put in place something called the Autism Data Science Initiative, where the focus is to support research on the etiology of autism or autism spectrum disorder. I think calling it a disorder is wrong for many, many parts of the autism spectrum. It’s even important to know, scientifically, what’s the biological basis for the conditions that characterize the autism spectrum.

I think the answer is going to be very different for different parts of the spectrum. I personally have a cousin who has a severely disabled autistic child who is now a young adult. It’s a very, very different thing, it seems to me, biologically, than someone who’s just simply neurodiverse.

What I would love to see—and this is something I’ve been working on—is for the NIH’s research to speak to all parts of the spectrum. I think folks that are high-functioning autistic, the kind of help they need would be very, very different than the kind of help that someone on the more severely disabled part of the spectrum might need. There’s also, on some parts of the spectrum, co-occurring conditions that are more biologically derived in origin. I would love to see just better answers for people. That’s my main philosophy in designing the NIH’s portfolio for autism work.

Another area where we disagree is climate change. Many people want the NIH to do more in terms of climate change–related research, such as in the areas of respiratory health and mental health. The NIH has argued that those are areas best left under the purview of different organizations. How do you engage with people who criticize the NIH on that basis?

I want to distinguish two different things. The first thing is, does climate change cause shifts in the climate? Are CO2 [carbon dioxide] emissions linked to alterations in the climate? Does it result in disruption of ecosystems and so on? The second thing is, do severe climatic events impact human health? The NIH is really well set up to answer the second set of questions. In fact, we have a fantastic portfolio aimed at understanding how environmental exposures alter and sometimes harm human health.

I am fully supportive of that portfolio, which includes things along the lines of, what impact does air pollution have on asthma, or what impact does severe flooding have on the health outcomes of populations in local areas. We just put out an award for a project to look at how the ecological disaster in East Palestine impacted the folks in Ohio who live close by. I fully support that line of research. The first line of research that I mentioned, about CO2 as a mechanism that will impact climactic events, that’s pretty remote from the NIH’s normal mission.

This interview has been condensed and edited for style and clarity.