WASHINGTON – President-elect Donald J. Trump announced Tuesday evening that he would nominate Dr. Jay Bhattacharyaa Stanford health policy professor and outspoken critic of the country's public health system will take the lead National Institutes of Health.
In a press release on social media, Trump said, “Together, Jay and RFK Jr. will return the NIH to a gold standard of medical research by studying the underlying causes and solutions to America's greatest health challenges, including our chronic disease crisis,” to Robert F. Kennedy Jr ., his decision to steer the NIH's parent agency, the Department of Health and Human Services.
If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Bhattacharya would lead the $47.5 billion agency that’s the world's largest funder of biomedical research. NIH is a coalition of 27 institutes and centers that concentrate on cancer, infectious diseases, mental health, heart and lung disease, and substance abuse, amongst other areas.
“I’m humbled and honored that President Trump has chosen me to be the following NIH
Director,” Bhattacharya said on X. “We will reform America’s scientific institutions to make them trustworthy again and use the fruits of excellent science to make America healthy again!”
By choosing Bhattacharya, Trump is choosing someone with expertise in economics and health policy to lead the Stanford Center on the Demography and Economics of Health and Aging. As an M.D. and Ph.D. in economics, he is a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research and a research fellow at the Hoover Institution.
But he has no experience in basic or applied clinical biomedical research and has never held a government post. Over the past 50 years, the NIH has been led by renowned authorities in fields ranging from radiology to genetics. Many of them led smaller agencies before taking the helm of the NIH, a job with immense administrative responsibility.
He would be Dr. Replacing Monica M. Bertagnolli, a cancer surgeon and laboratory scientist who advocated for using artificial intelligence tools to create a research database. She also worked to make clinical trials more accessible to rural and minority patients.
Before spring 2020, Bhattacharya was a little-known academic who specialized in health policy issues such as physician reimbursement, cost and quality of care, geographic variation in physician practice, and regulatory oversight of FDA-approved products. Before joining the Stanford faculty, he was an economist at the RAND Corporation and taught courses in the economics department at UCLA.
But as the COVID pandemic broke out, Bhattacharya emerged as a leading critic of anti-pandemic measures, such as business and school closures, mask and distancing recommendations, and lockdowns.
The lockdowns and school closures led to economic and social devastation, he argued. He called for the pursuit of “herd immunity” through natural infections of those who are not sick or elderly.
He took aim at the NIH, saying it engaged in “massive suppression of scientific debate and research.” The CDC “exaggerated” the risk, he said. The FDA has approved vaccines and therapeutics with “little to no evidence, sometimes based on flawed models,” he claimed.
In response, he wrote, he experienced racist attacks and death threats during the pandemic.
He praised the result of the 2024 election, calling it a “vote against the establishment and for fundamental reform.” in a recent essay on the Unherd website. The Biden administration engaged in “orchestrated public relations campaigns,” he wrote, “and spread falsehoods and misinformation.”
Critics say he lacks the qualifications to lead the NIH.
“NIH is an institution founded on a foundation of respect for expertise,” he said Dr. Robert Morrisan epidemiologist and former professor at Tufts University School of Medicine.
“Dr. Bhattacharya has repeatedly shown a disregard for professional expertise over the course of the COVID pandemic,” he said, “rejecting feedback from experts in virology, pathology and epidemiology while conducting an epidemiological study as an economist, although he almost did not do so had no training or experience in the field.”
Lucky Trana science communicator and PhD in biochemistry based in New York City, said: “Dr. Bhattacharya has spread misinformation about vaccines and COVID, fought against life-saving public health measures during the pandemic, and is supported by well-funded organizations that threaten public health to advance corporate interests. Now more than ever, the NIH needs to be led by an expert who strongly supports groundbreaking research on new vaccines, treatments, and emerging infectious diseases. ”
It was rumored that the Trump team was initially looking for candidates who could have extensive operational experience to lead the giant health research agency. Accordingly the biopharma newsletter Endpoints NewsThe search included Moncef Slaoui, a longtime pharmaceutical executive at GSK who led Operation Warp Speed, the previous Trump administration's successful COVID-19 vaccine rollout. A source told the newsletter that Slaoui said he wasn't interested and gave other names.
But Bhattacharya's contrarian stance has won the support of many leading conservatives on Capitol Hill, who say they are looking for reformers willing to fight the bureaucracy.
“Dr. Bhattacharya understands the need for comprehensive reform following the failure of public health during the COVID-19 pandemic and has the knowledge and strength to do so,” said Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), Chair of the Select Subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic, in a statement. “He would ensure that public health returns to science-based solutions – not bureaucratic malpractice.”
Bhattacharya is co-author of the controversial book Great Barrington Declarationa manifesto published in October 2020 that argued for an easing of restrictions in favor of “targeted protection” – protecting those at risk of dying but allowing younger people to return to public life and through the natural spread of the virus build immunity.
He accused Dr. Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases attempt to destroy the careers of dissident scientists.
Bhattacharya was a plaintiff in a lawsuit, Murthy v. Missouri, alleging Biden administration officials pressured social media to suppress content critical of the administration's COVID policies. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that the plaintiffs did not have standing to pursue their claims.
He is a supporter of nominee for Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. and praises Kennedy's promises to end the chronic disease epidemic in the United States and eliminate corruption in the medical and pharmaceutical industries.
If appointedBhattacharya would haBecause he has no direct authority over the CDC and FDA, which he has heavily criticized during the COVID pandemic, the CDC, FDA and NIH are separate operating divisions within the Department of Health and Human Services.
At NIH, Bhattacharya vowed to change the NIH's “top-down leadership” and limit the tenure of institute directors to encourage the influx of new ideas, he said New Max TV. He also said he would strengthen the role of replication in research and help build confidence in the reliability and generalizability of study results.
“Transform the NIH from something that … controls society,” he said on NewsMax, “to something geared toward discovering the reality to enhance the health of Americans.”
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