The Stanford professor of health policy was a leading critic of government-imposed lockdowns and restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of health policy at Stanford University, is a top contender to lead the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the next Trump administration, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Bhattacharya was a key figure who spoke out against COVID-19 lockdowns and mandates during the pandemic.
The consideration, first reported by The Washington Post, comes after President-elect Donald Trump named Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as his nominee for secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the NIH.
If Bhattacharya is ultimately nominated and confirmed to lead the agency, he would be responsible for 27 institutes and centers on issues ranging from cancer and aging to drug abuse. Those include the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which was formerly chaired by Dr. Anthony Fauci.
The agency’s $48 billion budget funds medical research on cancers, vaccines, and other diseases through competitive grants to researchers at institutions across the nation. The agency also conducts its own research with thousands of scientists working at NIH labs in Bethesda, Maryland.
In October 2020, Bhattacharya was a lead author of the Great Barrington Declaration alongside Harvard University’s Martin Kulldorff and Oxford University’s Sunetra Gupta. That document, which garnered hundreds of thousands of signatures, called for an end to the COVID-19 lockdowns, which had been in effect for most of 2020.
“As infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists we have grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies,” the letter reads.
In the letter, Bhattacharya and his co-authors described the COVID-19 vaccines as merely one aspect of public health policy, which they said should also focus on immunity through natural infection because of the low risks the disease posed to the young and healthy.
Bhattacharya and his co-authors were opposed to both lockdowns and mask mandates.
By Joseph Lord
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