Trump Picks Kolkata-Born Jay Bhattacharya As Director Of National Institutes Of Health

Last Updated:November 27, 2024, 11:26 IST

Donald Trump has nominated Jay Bhattacharya as Director of the Institutes of Health. Bhattacharya has vowed to reform American scientific institutions and restore public trust in science.

Jay Bhattacharya (Image: Social Media)

US President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday picked Stanford academic and US Covid policy critic Jay Bhattacharya as the Director of the Institutes of Health.

A statement from Trump read, “I am thrilled to nominate Jay Bhattacharya, Md, PhD, to serve as Director of the Institutes of Health. Dr. Bhattacharya will work in coordination with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 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. Together they will work hard to Make America Healthy Again!".

In an X post, Bhattacharya said this team would “reform American scientific institutions" to make the country healthy again.

“I am honored and humbled by President Donald Trump’s nomination of me to be the next Institutes of Health director. 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 wrote.

The NIH director oversees 27 institutes and centers that conduct early-stage research on everything from vaccines for emerging pandemic threats to targets for new drugs.

WHO IS JAY BHATTACHARYA?

Jayanta “Jay" Bhattacharya, born in Kolkata in 1968, is a Stanford health policy professor and doctor and was an outspoken critic of the US government’s Covid-19 policies during the pandemic.

Along with two other academics, Bhattacharya published the Great Barrington Declaration, which called for a return to life as normal for those who were not vulnerable to the virus.

He sued the government afterwards, alleging that it pressured social media platforms to censor his opinions.

Bhattacharya graduated from Stanford University School of Medicine in 1997 and received his doctorate from Stanford’s Department of Economics in 2000, according to his resume.

During the Covid pandemic, Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the NIH’s Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease who served on President Trump’s coronavirus task force, became a frequent target of Republicans for contradicting some of Trump’s coronavirus policies and recommendations, leading to calls for his dismissal.

Francis Collins, the NIH director and Fauci’s boss, defended Fauci in a July 2020 interview with STAT News, saying it was “unimaginable" to consider firing Fauci, as some Republicans had demanded. As a career federal employee, Fauci’s job was shielded from political firings by federal civil service regulations, protections Trump has vowed to undo.

US DEPARTMENT OF NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH

On November 23, the Washington Post reported that Jay Bhattacharya was the presumptive favourite to be selected by Trump as the next director of the Institutes of Health (NIH).

He met with Robert F Kennedy Jr, Trump’s pick to lead HHS this week and impressed him with his ideas to overhaul NIH, the report stated.

Bhattacharya called for shifting the agency’s focus toward funding more innovative research and reducing the influence of some of its longest-serving career officials, it added.

Trump picked Kennedy earlier this month to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, the United States’ top health agency which oversees NIH and other health agencies.

News world Trump Picks Kolkata-Born Jay Bhattacharya As Director Of Institutes Of Health