WASHINGTON: US President-elect Donald Trump has appointed Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a well-known critic of Covid-19 lockdowns, as the next director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the world’s largest biomedical research body.
Trump announced the selection on Tuesday, rounding out his public health team ahead of his inauguration on January 20.
Bhattacharya, a Stanford University-trained physician and economist, gained national prominence in 2020 when he co-authored the controversial Great Barrington Declaration, which opposed widespread lockdowns in favour of focused protection for vulnerable groups such as the elderly.
The nomination places Bhattacharya at the helm of the NIH, tasked with leading medical research at a critical time for public health in the US.
Trump stated that Bhattacharya, alongside former rival Robert Kennedy Jr., who has been nominated to head the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), would work to “restore the NIH to a Gold Standard of Medical Research.”
“We will reform American scientific institutions so that they are worthy of trust again,” Bhattacharya said in a statement on X, formerly Twitter. “We will deploy the fruits of excellent science to make America healthy again!”
Bhattacharya’s selection is part of a broader shake-up of US health policy under Trump’s incoming administration.
Earlier in the month, Trump also nominated Dr. Marty Makary, a Johns Hopkins surgeon who opposed vaccine mandates, to head the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and Dr. Dave Weldon, a former congressman, to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Bhattacharya’s appointment is likely to attract attention given his vocal opposition to how the public health establishment, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, managed the pandemic.
In 2020, Fauci, the then-director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), criticised the Great Barrington Declaration, dismissing its authors as “fringe experts.”
In addition to Bhattacharya, Trump nominated Jim O’Neill, a former federal health official with ties to conservative donor Peter Thiel, as deputy secretary of HHS.
Despite the polarising nature of these appointments, Trump’s picks are expected to face confirmation hearings in the Senate.
The selection of Bhattacharya and others signals Trump’s intention to reshuffle the leadership of US public health agencies, marking a clear break from the approach of the Biden administration.
However, the nominations have sparked concern among some health experts and political observers, particularly regarding vaccine scepticism and the handling of the pandemic.
