Trump taps Jay Bhattacharya as director of the National Institutes of Health

[ad_1] President-elect Donald Trump has chosen well being economist Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a critic of pandemic lockdowns and vaccine mandates, to steer the Nationwide Institutes of Well being, the nation's main medical analysis company.

Trump, in a press release Tuesday night, stated Bhattacharya, a 56-year-old doctor and professor at Stanford College College of Drugs, will work in cooperation with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. , his choose to steer the Division of Well being and Human Companies, "to direct the Nation's Medical Analysis, and to make vital discoveries that can enhance Well being, and save lives."

"Collectively, Jay and RFK Jr. will restore the NIH to a Gold Commonplace of Medical Analysis as they look at the underlying causes of, and options to, America's greatest Well being challenges, together with our Disaster of Persistent Sickness and Illness," he wrote.

Jay Bhattacharya speaks in the course of the 2023 Forbes Healthcare Summit at Jazz at Lincoln Middle on Dec. 5, 2023 in New York Metropolis. Getty Photos

The choice to decide on Bhattacharya for the submit is yet one more reminder of the continuing affect of the COVID pandemic on the politics on public well being.

Bhattacharya was one in every of three authors of the Nice Barrington Declaration , an October 2020 open letter sustaining that lockdowns have been inflicting irreparable hurt.

The doc — which got here earlier than the supply of COVID-19 vaccines and in the course of the first Trump administration — promoted "herd immunity," the concept individuals at low threat ought to reside usually whereas increase immunity to COVID-19 by way of an infection. Safety ought to focus as an alternative on individuals at larger threat, the doc stated.

"I believe the lockdowns have been the one greatest public well being mistake," Bhattacharya stated in March 2021 throughout a panel dialogue convened by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The Nice Barrington Declaration was embraced by some within the first Trump administration, even because it was broadly denounced by illness specialists. Then-NIH director Dr. Francis Collins referred to as it harmful and "not mainstream science."

His nomination would must be authorized by the Senate.

Trump on Tuesday additionally introduced that Jim O'Neill, a former HHS official, will function deputy secretary of the sprawling company. Trump stated O'Neill "will oversee all operations and enhance Administration, Transparency, and Accountability to, Make America Wholesome Once more," the president-elect introduced.

O'Neill is the one one in every of Trump's well being picks to date who brings earlier expertise working contained in the paperwork to the job. Trump's earlier selections to steer public well being companies — together with Kennedy, Dr. Mehmet Oz for Facilities for Medicare and Medicaid Companies administrator and Dr. Marty Makary for Meals and Drug Administration commissioner — have all been Washington outsiders who're vowing to shake up the companies.

Bhattacharya, who confronted restrictions on social media platforms due to his views, was additionally a plaintiff in Murthy v. Missouri , a Supreme Court docket case contending that federal officers improperly suppressed conservative views on social media as a part of their efforts to fight misinformation. The Supreme Court docket sided with the Biden administration in that case.

After Elon Musk acquired Twitter in 2022, he invited Bhattacharya to the corporate's headquarters to study extra about how his views had been restricted on the platform, which Musk renamed X. Extra lately, Bhattacharya has posted on X about scientists leaving the location and becoming a member of the choice web site Bluesky, mocking Bluesky as "their very own little echo chamber."

Bhattacharya has argued that vaccine mandates that barred unvaccinated individuals from actions and workplaces undermined Individuals' belief within the public well being system.

He's a former analysis fellow on the Hoover Establishment and an economist on the RAND Company.

The Nationwide Institutes of Well being falls underneath HHS, which Trump has nominated Kennedy to supervise. The NIH's $48 billion funds funds medical analysis on vaccines, most cancers and different ailments by way of aggressive grants to researchers at establishments throughout the nation. The company additionally conducts its personal analysis with hundreds of scientists working at NIH labs in Bethesda, Maryland.

Amongst advances that have been supported by NIH cash are a drugs for opioid habit, a vaccine to forestall cervical most cancers, many new most cancers medication and the speedy improvement of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines.