Jay Bhattacharya, President Donald Trump ’s nominee to direct the National Institutes of Health faced questions Wednesday during his Senate confirmation hearing about how he would lead the agency and whether he would support policies handed down from Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, on Wednesday fielded a wide swath of questions from senators that largely revolved around how he plans to restore public trust in the nation’s premier biomedical research agency.

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, Trump's pick to lead the NIH, appeared to be open studies investigating potential links between vaccines and autism, a long-debunked theory.