Despite a federal hiring freeze, the Trump administration just named a scientist who calls Vance one of his “closest friends” to head a key national environmental health research unit.
TO Lisa Gross For Domestic climate news
This month, in the midst of a hiring freeze, employees at the National Institutes of Health learned by email that their prestigious environmental health research center had a new director.
There were no job advertisements, no selection committee to identify the best candidates, no interviews, no reference checks.
The position of head of the nation's leading environmental health research institute wasn't even open.
However, Jay Bhattacharya, a political appointee who oversees NIH's 27 institutes and centers, named Kyle Walsh, an assistant professor of neurosurgery at Duke University, as director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS).
In an Oct. 17 email, Bhattacharya told NIH staff, who were told they could periodically check their email for updates on the closure, that Walsh's appointment was effective Oct. 10. The email identified Walsh as a leader in the field of neuroepidemiology, whose research integrates laboratory and population science to understand how genetics and the environment interact to shape brain health, cancer risk and aging.
Bhattacharya said the previous director, Richard Wojcik, accepted a high-level appointment in the NIH Director's Office, where he will focus on advancing Making America Healthy Again (MAHA) initiatives.
Director of the NIH, who President Donald Trump said will work with Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to return the agency to the “gold standard of medical research” – did not mention that Walsh calls Vice President J.D. Vance “one of his closest friends” or that Vance officiated at his wedding.
Walsh has never led a major research institution, although he has won scientific awards and honors since receiving his doctorate in 2011.
Wojcik oversaw NIEHS research and administration as deputy director for nearly a decade before he was named to lead it. His predecessor, world-renowned toxicologist Linda Birnbaum, spent almost 20 years in senior management positions in the largest US division. environmental health research at EPA before she was selected to lead NIEHS in 2009.
It is unprecedented to appoint someone so early in his career who lacks the leadership experience needed to run a major research institution, current and former federal scientists said. And all NIH institute directors, with the exception of the director of the National Cancer Institute, who is a political appointee, undergo a rigorous selection and vetting process after an open search.
If there had been an open search in this case, several scientists told Inside Climate News, Walsh would not have made the first cut. Scientists fear this is the start of a trend.
“This is complete cronyism,” said biochemist Jeremy Berg, former director of the NIH's National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) and former editor-in-chief of the journal Science.
Wojcik had just been reappointed to a new five-year term, so Walsh's appointment had nothing to do with the current director's performance, Berg said. “The fact that he was appointed without any search is troubling,” he said, adding that “his primary credentials appear to be his connections to J.D. Vance.”
Vance had been friends with Walsh since their days at Yale University, and he stayed at Walsh's house while finishing his book, Hillbilly Elegy.
Walsh said Vance is “one of my closest friends” in interview with charity organization it supported his research into brain cancer.
Before Trump's inauguration in January, Birnbaum, who is now a scientist in residence at Duke, heard rumors that Walsh was being tapped to lead NIEHS, she said. “A lot of people at Duke and other places seemed to know about it.”
Walsh has been telling his colleagues and other Duke employees for nearly a year that he would get the job, a NIEHS scientist who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation told Inside Climate News.
Although the appointment came as a surprise to the scientific community, the scientist said it was “obviously a pre-planned event.”
Neither Walsh nor Duke's press office responded to requests for comment.
HHS spokeswoman Emily Hilliard said Walsh gained extensive experience in environmental and neuroepidemiological research through leadership positions at Duke University.
Hilliard did not respond to questions about Walsh's experience leading a major research institute with hundreds of employees or to accusations that he was hired because of his political connections.
The vice president's office did not respond to a request for comment.
“Slap in the face”
The director of NIEHS oversees an annual budget of more than $900 million, funding scientists inside and outside the agency who study the health effects of exposure to environmental chemicals.
Research funded by the agency has formed the basis of landmark environmental projects. For example, research by NIEHS-funded scientists has laid the groundwork for EPA Air Pollution Rules and showed that the pesticide chlorpyrifos poses an unacceptable risk to neurodevelopment in children, prompting the Environmental Protection Agency to conclude that the insecticide not safe to eat.
But now the Trump administration is reconsidering the chlorpyrifos decision. And scientists have seen highly competitive proposals defunded because of their focus on climate and environmental justice.
The person hired to lead NIEHS program on climate change and health care, Birnbaum said, “was fired immediately” upon Trump’s return to office.
And anything related to equity was excluded from NIEHS programs and research grants, she said, even though the most vulnerable suffer the most from environmental hazards.
While it's unclear “what Walsh's orders will be,” Birnbaum said, she hopes they include maintaining the agency's strengths as the world's largest funder of environmental health research.
While Walsh's appointment is “unusual,” Birnbaum said, “I hope the environmental community can work with Dr. Walsh to continue to conduct the leading research they are so renowned for.”
Some scientists fear this is unlikely.
As a scientist working on brain cancer genetics, Walsh “does not have the scientific qualifications to lead an institute focused on environmental chemicals and disease,” said Jerry Heindel, who worked for decades at NIEHS, where he headed the agency's extramural research and training division until he retired in 2016.
Heindel reviewed scientific studies published by Walsh and found no papers on environmental chemicals.
NIEHS is unique among the National Institutes of Health because it is the only one that focuses on chemicals in the environment, says Heindel, who now heads the nonprofit Healthy Environments and Endocrine Disruption Strategies. “To bring in someone who has no experience and probably no interest in chemicals in the environment to be director is a slap in the face.”
The NIH core center that best matches Walsh's expertise focuses on cancer and genetics, but it is based in Maryland. NIEHS's main campus is in Durham, North Carolina, near Walsh's previous position at Duke. Several scientists told Inside Climate News they suspect Walsh was reluctant to move.
“If you're friends with J.D. Vance, you can pick and choose whatever you want,” said an NIEHS scientist who spoke on condition of anonymity.
It's not just Walsh's lack of qualifications that worries Berg, the former director of NIGMS.
“The administration has certainly been pretty straightforward about its feelings about climate change and its potential impacts, and the reality that it's happening at all,” Berg said. “If you don't study the potential environmental hazards, there's nothing you can do about them.”
With at least 11 NIH agencies now led by interim directors, some scientists are concerned that positions once held by the nation's most distinguished scientists will go to unqualified political appointees.
That means decisions about how much the US funds biomedicine will be made by political appointees, not scientists, they fear.
“Everyone is worried that they're going to come in and shut us down because the current administration seems to be very hostile to environmental health and environmental issues,” the NIEHS scientist said. “Everything related to the environment and environmental health has been completely destroyed by this administration.”
If people care about making America healthy again, the words and actions of the current administration fall short of that goal, the scientist said. “They're going to gut the EPA, they're going to gut the CDC, they're going to gut the FDA. Are they going to gut us next?”
