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Stanford University professor and Covid-19 lockdown skeptic Jay Bhattacharya has emerged as the frontrunner to run the National Institutes of Health, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The nomination of Bhattacharya, who rose to prominence during the pandemic for his opposition to lockdown restrictions, would put another ally of vaccine skeptic Robert Kennedy Jr, Trump’s pick to run US Department of Health, in charge of one of the most powerful public agencies in the country. medical agency.
With an annual budget of $48 billion, NIH is the largest government-funded biomedical research agency in the world, providing more than 60,000 grants each year to support medical and scientific research.
Senior officials on Trump’s transition team spoke with Bhattacharya, who runs Stanford’s Center for Demography and Economics of Health and Agingin recent days, residents said.
The choice of NIH director will likely be announced in the coming days, but plans could change and another candidate could emerge, the source added.
Representatives for Trump and Kennedy’s transition teams did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Bhattacharya also could not be reached for comment.
Late Friday, Trump’s transition team announced a series of high-level nominations, including Treasury Secretary, Labor Secretary and three key health officials.
Marty Makary, a Johns Hopkins surgeon who opposes Covid-19 vaccine regulations, has been nominated to run the Food and Drug Administration. Doctor and former Republican congressman Dave Weldon, who has raised doubts about vaccine safety, has been appointed to run the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Bhattacharya appeared with Kennedy at a campaign event during his independent Presidential campaign, during which he revealed his running mate was Nicole Shanahan.
Since endorsing Trump’s presidential bid in August, Kennedy has exerted significant influence on the president’s health care policy agenda as part of his “Make it American” campaign. “Return to health” of him. Trump’s choice of Fox News medical contributor Janette Nesheiwat is the only one of the medical appointees so far not close to Kennedy, this person added.
Along with two other professors, Bhattacharya became the face of “The Great Barrington Declaration” during the pandemic, an open letter published in October 2020 opposed widespread lockdowns and instead called for restrictions to focus on at-risk groups, such as the elderly . The letter sparked criticism from then-NIH director Francis Collins, who dismissed the authors as “fringe experts.”
Much of Bhattacharya’s public criticism of the NIH has focused on how Collins and Anthony Fauci – the former director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the NIH – responded to the pandemic.
Bhattacharya told the Financial Times this month that he supports term limits for NIH directors. “I think there is too much concentration of power in too few hands: there should not be another Tony Fauci,” he said.
Kennedy’s nominations Health and Human ServicesThe es secretary has worried the pharmaceutical industry and public health agencies with his skeptical views on vaccines, his stated goal of eliminating “entire departments” within the FDA and plan to remove fluoride from drinking water. However, Kennedy has promised not to limit vaccine access.
In an article on digital media site UnHerd published last week, Bhattacharya brushed aside concerns about some of Kennedy’s debunked claims, saying: “Kennedy is not a scientist, but his goodwill His call for better research and more debate was echoed by many Americans. ”
He added that “the American public voted for troublemakers like RFK Jr in 2024, and academic medicine now has a chance to atone for its Covid-era blunders.”
