“That kind of transparency is absolutely vital to science,” Bhattacharya added. “What I saw during the pandemic was censorship instead of science, and that is the death of any scientific culture.” Bhattacharya also said discussions were underway within the Trump administration about developing a new pandemic response “playbook” going forward. On vaccine safety, Bhattacharya said the NIH was establishing a new research center. “It was an open scientific conversation that should have been embraced.”