What started as speculation about evolving health policy in the U.S., with Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s nomination as the secretary of health and human services, continues to look like change is coming. Earlier this week, President-elect Donald Trump nominated Stanford University researcher Dr. Jay Bhattacharya as the next director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
The nomination further indicates a shift from current policies because Bhattacharya has openly criticized COVID mandates.
When referring to school closures and mask-wearing, Bhattacharya told the San Jose Mercury News in an October interview, “There was a very wide range of things that we got terribly wrong during the pandemic.”
Bhattacharya is a professor at Stanford University, a researcher, a health economist, and a physician. During the beginning of lockdowns in 2020, Bhattacharya co-wrote “Is the Coronavirus as Deadly as They Say?” The opinion piece piece appeared in The Wall Street Journal, It emphasized that there was little evidence to support shelter-in-place orders and quarantines. He also penned the Great Barrington Declaration, which opposes widespread lockdowns.
NIH, a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is the nation’s largest medical research agency, with more than 18,000 employees and approximately $48 billion in scientific research funds. The organization’s goals are to focus on research that improves health, develop resources to prevent disaster, expand knowledge, and promote the highest level of integrity to the public.
Sources:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Bhattacharya
www.nih.gov
commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=Jay+Bhattacharya&title=Special:MediaSearch&go=Go&type=image
www.mercurynews.com/2024/10/04/skeptics-challenge-pandemic-policy-at-stanford-symposium/
