President-elect Donald Trump has appointed Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, an economist with a health background and a known opponent of pandemic lockdowns and vaccine requirements, to head the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the foremost medical research organization in the United States.
In an announcement made on Tuesday evening, Trump stated that Bhattacharya, who is 56 and a professor at Stanford University School of Medicine, will collaborate with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – Trump’s selection for the Department of Health and Human Services – to oversee national medical research initiatives aimed at discovering critical health solutions that may enhance public health and save lives.
Trump expressed confidence that together, Bhattacharya and Kennedy would elevate the NIH back to a “Gold Standard” of medical research, addressing the root causes and possible solutions to America’s significant public health issues, which include a growing crisis of chronic diseases.
The appointment of Bhattacharya underscores the lasting effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on public health policy and political decisions. He co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration in October 2020, a letter that argued against lockdowns by claiming they inflict lasting damage on society.
Advocating for “herd immunity,” the declaration suggested that healthy individuals should be permitted to lead normal lives to develop immunity to COVID-19 through natural infection, while measures should be concentrated on protecting vulnerable groups. In a March 2021 discussion led by Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis, Bhattacharya described the lockdowns as “the single biggest public health mistake.”
Although the Great Barrington Declaration received support from some members of Trump’s first administration, it faced considerable criticism from public health authorities. Then-NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins condemned it as dangerous and not representative of mainstream scientific consensus. Bhattacharya’s nomination is subject to Senate confirmation.
On the same day, Trump also named Jim O’Neill, who previously worked at HHS, as deputy secretary of the agency. Trump highlighted O’Neill’s role in enhancing management, transparency, and accountability to improve public health outcomes in the nation. O’Neill stands out among Trump’s nominees as the sole candidate with direct bureaucratic experience in public health.
Bhattacharya has faced significant restrictions on social media due to his contentious views, and he was a plaintiff in Murthy v. Missouri, a Supreme Court case asserting that federal officials improperly suppressed conservative opinions in their campaign to counter misinformation. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Biden administration in that instance.
After Elon Musk took control of Twitter in 2022, he invited Bhattacharya to discuss the limitations imposed on his views on the platform, now rebranded as X. Recently, Bhattacharya has remarked on X about scientists migrating to the alternative platform Bluesky, deriding it as their “own little echo chamber.”
He has criticized vaccine mandates that restricted unvaccinated individuals from participating in various activities, arguing that they eroded public trust in the health care system. Bhattacharya holds a past position as a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and has also worked as an economist for the RAND Corporation.
The NIH, which falls under the Department of Health and Human Services, has a substantial annual budget of $48 billion dedicated to funding research in vaccines, cancer treatments, and myriad other diseases through grants to research institutions across the country. The agency also carries out its own research with thousands of scientists based at NIH labs located in Bethesda, Maryland.
NIH-funded advancements include treatments for opioid addiction, a vaccine preventing cervical cancer, various new cancer therapies, and the rapid development of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines.