Jenna Norton (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

In his confirmation hearings to lead the NIH, Jay Bhattacharya, MD, PhD, pledged his openness to views that might conflict with his own. "Dissent," he said, "is the very essence of science."

That commitment is being put to the test.

On Monday, scores of scientists at the agency sent their Trump-appointed leader a letter titled the Bethesda Declaration , a frontal challenge to "policies that undermine the NIH mission, waste public resources , and harm the health of Americans and people across the globe."

It says: "We dissent."

In a capital where insiders often insist on anonymity to say such things publicly, more than 90 NIH researchers, program directors, branch chiefs, and scientific review officers put their signatures on the letter -

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