Trump faucets Bhattacharya to guide NIH

President-elect Donald Trump nominated Dr. Jay Bhattacharya on Tuesday evening to be director of the Nationwide Institutes of Well being. 

“Dr. Bhattacharya will work in cooperation with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to direct the Nation’s Medical Analysis, and to make necessary discoveries that can enhance Well being, and save lives,” Trump stated in a press release.

Bhattacharya, a doctor and professor of medication, economics and well being coverage at Stanford College, was vital of COVID-19 restrictions and accused the Nationwide Institutes of Well being of holding an excessive amount of energy. Now, he’s slated to guide the company that’s a key supply of federal funding for educational analysis at universities. The place is topic to Senate affirmation.

Trump’s decide as secretary of well being and human companies, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who would oversee NIH, has stated he needs to put off 600 staff on the company and shift NIH’s focus away from infectious illnesses, equivalent to COVID-19, towards persistent situations like weight problems. 

Bhattacharya was one among three authors of an open letter often known as the Nice Barrington Declaration, revealed in October 2020, that urged officers to elevate the COVID-19 stay-at-home orders and permit regular actions to renew for all who weren’t particularly susceptible to issues from the virus.

Bhattacharya stated NIH wanted to “do extra to advertise progressive science” and proposed restructuring NIH so that there have been “many extra facilities of energy, so that you just couldn’t have a small variety of scientific bureaucrats, dominating a subject for a really very long time,” The Washington Submit reported. 

Trump touted Bhattacharya’s position within the Nice Barrington Declaration in his assertion asserting the NIH appointment.

“Collectively, Jay and RFK Jr. will restore the NIH to a Gold Normal of Medical Analysis as they study the underlying causes of, and options to, America’s largest Well being challenges, together with our Disaster of Persistent Sickness and Illness,” Trump stated. “Collectively, they are going to work laborious to Make America Wholesome Once more!”