Dr. Francis S. Collins, a well-known geneticist who ran the National Institutes of Health for 12 years, is pointed, if pointed, at the Trump administration, which left the institute and federal government on Saturday, fired hundreds of NIH employees.
“When I leave NIH, I want to express my gratitude and love to the men and women who have worked side by side for many years,” wrote Dr. Collins. “They are individuals of extraordinary intelligence and integrity, selfless, hardworking, generous and caring. They personify excellence in every respect and deserve the greatest respect and support of all Americans.”
Dr. Collins, 74, served under three presidents: Barack Obama, Donald J. Trump and Joseph R. Biden Jr.
He gave no reason to retire, and he said in a text message that he “had not been interviewed.”
His announcement comes days before the Senate confirmation hearing scheduled this Wednesday for President Trump's candidate to become the next director of the NIH.
Dr. Bhatacharya is one of three authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, an anti-lockdown paper signed in October 2020 at the height of the coronavirus pandemic. An email published later showed that Dr. Collins called Dr. Batacharya and his co-authors “fringe epidemiologists.”
In an interview with Fox News at the time, Dr. Collins confronted his statement, adding, “If we followed that strategy, hundreds of thousands of people would have died.” Dr. Bhatacharya later attacked Dr. Collins as one of many scientists who “abused the power to make a catastrophic takedown of scientists who opposed them.”
Dr. Collins was praised for joining the Institute during President Bill Clinton's administration in 1993 and leading the Human Genome Project, a federal government effort to map the human genome.
He also became known for his religious views. Dr. Collins is an evangelical Christian who sought to bridge the gap between science and Christianity, including his 2006 book The Language of God. In the political fallout against the coronavirus pandemic, he joined a group called the “Braver Angels” who tried to bridge partisan disparities, and later publicly acknowledged several community mistakes.
His carefully crafted statement provided strong defense and lament for the NIH at a time when biomedical research gained strong bipartisan support.
When he was recruited to the Institute and for many years that followed, “investment in medical research was seen as a high priority and a non-political, bipartisan effort.”
“NIH is the world's biggest advocate for biomedical research,” he writes. “The main piston of the world's vy hopeful biomedical discovery engine. But it's not a common name. It should be.”
He proceeded as follows: “When I heard about patients surviving stage 4 cancer for immunotherapy, it was based on NIH research for decades. When I heard that sickle cell disease was cured due to CRISPR gene editing, it was built on years of research supported by NIH.
Dr. Anthony S. Fauko, a longtime colleague of Dr. Collins, who retired as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the end of 2022, praised Dr. Collins on Saturday, saying he had “very positive impacts” on biomedical research.
However, Trump and his health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., allies cheered Dr. Collins on his departure. Among them is Katie Miller, who served as Kennedy's spokeswoman before Trump appointed her to government efficiency.
“Francis Collins was an ineffective leader who openly laughed at President Trump by bending to Tony Forsey on his knee,” Miller wrote on social media. “@drjbhattacharya is the right leader to move @nih forward.”
Dr. Collins' retirement, effective Friday, follows the departure of other high-ranking NIH staff, including Dr. Lawrence A. Tabak, the Institute's longtime second officer. Dr. Tabak left last month after facing reallocation of what he deemed unacceptable, according to someone familiar with his decision.
Dr. Collins was appointed by Obama to lead the NIH, and he resigned as director to return to his lab in late 2021, the first year of the Biden administration. “Millions of people will never know that Dr. Collins saved his life,” Biden said at the time. “Number of researchers aim to follow in his footsteps.”
