Biden’s pick for top NIH post has deep ties to pharma — ‘That Is how agencies are captured’

President Joe Biden this week nominated cancer specialist Dr. Monica Bertagnolli for director of the National Institutes of Health — a move that has already generated controversy because of Bertagnolli’s financial ties to Pfizer and other pharmaceutical companies. If confirmed, Bertagnolli will replace the NIH’s acting director, Lawrence Tabak, D.D.S., Ph.D., who has held the position since the NIH’s previous permanent director, Francis Collins, M.D., Ph.D., resigned in December 2021. She will oversee a $47 billion budget that encompasses “a wide variety of medical research beyond cancer, including infectious diseases, heart disease, Alzheimer’s and other brain disorders, diabetes, drug addiction and mental health,” according to The Associated Press. Bertagnolli is director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the largest of the 19 institutes and seven centers under the aegis of the NIH. Biden named her NCI director in August, making her the first woman to hold the position.