Bhattacharya said he wants to reform the US medical research agency and restore public trust in scientific institutions.
US President-elect Donald Trump has picked Dr Jay Bhattacharya, a health economist and critic of pandemic lockdowns and vaccine mandates, to lead the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the world’s largest biomedical research agency.
Trump said in a statement that Bhattacharya, a 56-year-old physician and professor at Stanford University School of Medicine, will work with Robert F Kennedy Jr, his pick to lead the US health department, “to direct the Nation’s Medical Research, and to make important discoveries that will improve Health, and save lives”.
“Together, Jay and RFK Jr. will restore the NIH to a Gold Standard of Medical Research as they examine the underlying causes of, and solutions to, America’s biggest Health challenges, including our Crisis of Chronic Illness and Disease,” Trump wrote.
The NIH falls under the US Department of Health and Human Services, which Kennedy would oversee.
The NIH’s $48 billion (€44.4 billion) budget pays for medical research on vaccines, cancer, and other diseases through competitive grants to researchers at institutions across the US and also conducts its own research with thousands of scientists working at NIH labs.
Many countries in Europe also have NIH-funded activities, focusing mainly on HIV/AIDS, immunology, mosquito-borne illnesses, and the flu, according to the agency.
NIH funding has supported a medication for opioid addiction, a vaccine to prevent cervical cancer, many new cancer drugs, and the speedy development of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines.
The decision to choose Bhattacharya for the NIH job is yet another reminder of the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the politics of public health in the US.
Bhattacharya was one of three authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, an October 2020 open letter maintaining that lockdowns were causing irreparable harm.
The document – which came before the availability of COVID-19 vaccines and during the first Trump administration – promoted “herd immunity,” the idea that people at low risk should live normally while building up immunity to COVID-19 through infection. Protection should focus instead on people at higher risk, the letter said.
“I think the lockdowns were the single biggest public health mistake,” Bhattacharya said in March 2021 during a panel discussion hosted by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
The Great Barrington Declaration was embraced by some in the first Trump administration, even as it was widely denounced by disease experts.
Then-NIH director Dr Francis Collins called it dangerous and “not mainstream science”.
In a statement posted to X, Bhattacharya said he was “honored and humbled” by the nomination.
“We will reform American scientific institutions so that they are worthy of trust again and will deploy the fruits of excellent science to make America healthy again,” he said.
The announcement fills out Trump’s senior health team as he prepares for his second term beginning in January.
The Senate would need to approve Bhattacharya as well as Trump’s other choices, including Kennedy to lead the health department, Dr Mehmet Oz to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) – the US’s public health insurance programme – and Dr Marty Makary to lead the regulatory Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
