As President Trump begins assembling his team for a second term, one of his most consequential picks is raising eyebrows and sparking fierce debate in the scientific community. Jay Bhattacharya, a Stanford economist and unofficial Covid advisor during Trump’s first term, has been tapped to lead the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the world’s premier biomedical research institution.
A Controversial Figure
Bhattacharya first gained notoriety in early 2020 when he downplayed the severity of Covid-19 and joined forces with two other scientists to recommend a strategy of letting the virus spread unchecked among the general population while attempting to protect the vulnerable – an approach they called “focused protection.” This proposal, known as the Great Barrington Declaration, was widely panned by mainstream experts as reckless and scientifically unsound.
Critics argue that Bhattacharya’s stance on Covid, combined with his skepticism of vaccines and masking, make him a dangerous choice to helm the NIH. As one researcher put it: “He was a pro-infection doctor. He said that parts of the country had reached herd immunity in summer 2020 … He said that one infection led to permanent, robust immunity, and he treated rare vaccine side effects as a fate worse than death.”
The White House Embrace
Despite the backlash from scientists, the White House fully embraced Bhattacharya’s “herd immunity” thesis. After meeting with the economist and his collaborators, then-HHS Secretary Alex Azar confirmed that their proposals aligned with the administration’s policies.
The results were catastrophic – in the months that followed, the worst wave of the pandemic battered the U.S., killing hundreds of thousands. The promise of protecting the vulnerable never materialized, and even Trump himself was hospitalized with Covid. By the end of 2020, the U.S. had suffered a far higher per capita death toll than peer nations that adopted more cautious approaches.
A Blow to Trust in Science
Beyond the immediate devastation of the pandemic, experts fear that elevating Bhattacharya and other controversial figures to key health leadership positions could badly erode public trust in science for years to come. With confidence in institutions like the CDC and NIH already battered, putting a polarizing economist with a track record of questioning vaccine safety at the helm sends an alarming message.
“Every measles outbreak, every pertussis outbreak, will be on them,” warned Dr. Jonathan Howard, an NYU neurologist and author. Howard and other medical experts predict a surge in once-vanquished infectious diseases if vaccine skepticism continues to spread.
Bhattacharya himself has called for an “absolute revamping” of the scientific establishment, claiming that public health has been wielded as a “tool for authoritarian power.” He envisions the post-Covid NIH moving in a sharply different direction, with less emphasis on government-led research and more reliance on private-sector efforts.
A High-Stakes Nomination
As the Senate prepares to consider Bhattacharya’s nomination, the stakes couldn’t be higher. The NIH plays a pivotal role in setting the nation’s medical research priorities and health policies. Its leaders can shape the trajectory of scientific progress for a generation.
Critics worry that under Bhattacharya’s leadership, the agency could shift away from its core mission of conducting groundbreaking studies and providing impartial, evidence-based guidance to policymakers and the public. Instead, they fear an ideologically-driven agenda that undermines key public health tools like vaccines and gives credence to fringe theories.
“This is not mainstream science. It’s dangerous,” former NIH Director Francis Collins said of Bhattacharya’s pandemic prescriptions. The research community is watching anxiously to see if Collins’ successor will upend the agency’s long tradition of letting data drive decisions.
As the confirmation battle looms, one thing is certain: Bhattacharya’s nomination ensures that the partisan rancor and scientific controversies that defined the Covid years will keep raging well into the new administration. For an exhausted nation still reeling from the pandemic’s toll, that prospect provides little comfort.
