Trump nominates COVID-19 vaccine and lockdown skeptic Dr. Jay Bhattacharya to be the next NIH director

By arseniotoledo // 2024-12-02

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President-elect Donald Trump has named Dr. Jay Bhattacharya as his nominee to be the next director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Bhattacharya is a professor of health policy at Stanford University, and he gained notoriety – and the ire of leading federal health leaders like former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Dr. Anthony Fauci – for being critical of the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) lockdowns and the vaccines. He was known for suggesting that the government should instead focus on keeping people healthy and building up their immunity while at the same time focusing its efforts on protecting vulnerable populations. "I am thrilled to nominate Jay Bhattacharya, MD, PhD, to serve as director of the National Institutes of Health," announced Trump in a post on his Truth Social account. "Dr. Bhattacharya will work in cooperation with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to direct the nation's medical research, and to make important discoveries that will improve health and save lives." Bhattacharya said in a statement that he felt "humbled" and "honored" to be nominated to lead the NIH. "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," wrote Bhattacharya in a statement on X. Bhattacharya has already met with Kennedy to discuss future policy. It is likely that Kennedy played a central role in Trump choosing Bhattacharya, since he has also influenced the president-elect's other public health nominations. (Related: Donald Trump nominates Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as HHS secretary, giving him control over the FDA, CDC, NIH and other agencies.) Kennedy reportedly helped Trump pick Johns Hopkins Hospital surgeon Dr. Martin Makary to be the next Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner, and internal medicine physician and former Florida Rep. Dave Weldon to be the next Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director. In his own statement, Kennedy lauded Trump's choice of Bhattacharya. "I'm so grateful to President Trump for this spectacular appointment," wrote Kennedy on X. "Dr. Jay Bhattacharya is the ideal leader to restore NIH as the international template for gold-standard science and evidence-based medicine." Bhattacharya's nomination requires confirmation by the Senate, which will have a Republican majority in January when the incoming 119th Congress takes office.

Dr. Bhattacharya to help roll back the overreaching powers of the NIH

As head of the NIH, Bhattacharya would be in control of 27 health institutes and centers, over 20,000 staff – including nearly 6,000 scientists – and overseeing major health agencies like the NIAID, the National Cancer Institute and other centers that focus on specific diseases and research areas. Furthermore, Bhattacharya would be in control of the NIH's nearly $31 billion annual budget for doling out research grants for conditions that affect public health. This massive budget has helped fund medical research at more than 2,500 universities, medical schools and other health institutions around the world. Bhattacharya is expected to help trim the staff of the NIH. He has previously called for the power of some of the 27 institutes and centers that make up the NIH to be rolled back, arguing that many of the so-called public health experts and other career civil servants who work in the NIH are responsible for wrongly shaping national public health policies at the height of the pandemic and did not allow dissenting perspectives to flourish. Watch this video discussing Dr. Jay Bhattacharya's journey from being censored for being critical of COVID-19 policy to becoming the next presumptive head of the NIH. This video is from the Recharge Freedom channel on Brighteon.com.

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Dr. Bhattacharya to help roll back the overreaching powers of the NIH

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