Senate Confirms Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a Fierce Critic of Dr. Fauci, to Head the National Institutes of Health

The U.S. Senate has confirmed Stanford physician and economist Dr. Jay Bhattacharya as director of the National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH, on a party-line vote. The 56-year-old Indian American, who opposed COVID lockdowns, will now head the world’s premier medical research agency, with a $47 billion budget and 27 separate institutes and centers. 
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Bhattacharya, who came into prominence during the coronavirus pandemic, holds views on medicine and public health that are at times outside the mainstream. He has advocated for a major NIH shakeup and accused former leaders Francis Collins and Anthony Fauci of suppressing scientific debate and research during the pandemic.

During his confirmation hearing earlier this month, Bhattacharya dodged questions about the recent staffing cuts and threat to research funding. When questioned by lawmakers about the safety of vaccines, he said that he supported children’s vaccination against diseases like measles. But at the same time, he told the lawmakers that “scientists should conduct more research on autism and vaccines.” 
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Bhattacharya is one of the authors of the “Great Barrington Declaration,” an open letter signed by thousands of doctors and scientists in 2020 denouncing lockdowns as harmful. He was joined by Harvard professor of medicine Dr. Martin Kulldorff and Oxford professor Dr. Sunetra Gupta in co-authoring the document. The declaration was quickly denounced by other health leaders, including National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Dr. Fauci, who slammed the call for herd immunity in the document as “nonsense and very dangerous,” The New York Post reported. 

According to The Washington Post  “the rise of Bhattacharya — from being scorned by the nation’s NIH director to possibly occupying his office four years later — reflects how the backlash to coronavirus policies has helped reshape conservative politics and elevate new voices.” He has often described himself as a victim of what felt like a “propaganda attack” led by public health experts after the Great Barrington Declaration. However, despite the criticism the Great Barrington Declaration received, The Post points out that “many Americans have come to believe that school shutdowns and other pandemic-related policies lasted too long.”

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, who has faced criticism for his reluctance to explicitly recommend vaccinations in the midst of a deadly measles outbreak in West Texas, oversees both the NIH and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Dr. Martin A. Makary, who was also confirmed on March 25, the same day as Bhattacharya, will lead the FDA.
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