Jay Bhattacharyya, a Stanford University-trained physician and economist, has been officially named by President-elect Donald Trump to be the next director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
President Trump made the announcement in a post on Truth Social, writing, “I am excited to appoint Jay Bhattacharyya, M.D., as Director of the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Bhattacharyya, in collaboration with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “I'll be working hard,” he wrote. To lead the nation's medical research and make important discoveries that improve health and save lives. ”
Mr. Bhattacharya met this week with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Trump's nominee to head the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the NIH and other health agencies, and discussed his ideas for overhauling the agency. He impressed the former presidential candidate. The Washington Post reports that the company oversees biomedical research in the United States.
NIH also awards grants to hundreds of thousands of researchers, oversees clinical trials at its Maryland campus, and supports a variety of efforts to develop drugs and treatments.
Nominees for NIH director must be approved by the Senate, which will have a Republican majority starting in January.
Trump Pick Marty McCurry as DR. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner
Jay Bhattacharya, a Stanford University-trained physician and economist, is reportedly the frontrunner to be nominated by President-elect Donald Trump to be the next NIH director. (Getty Images)
Bhattacharyya called for the NIH to shift its focus to funding more innovative research and reducing the influence of some of the agency's longest-serving employees.
Kennedy Jr. is a member of the incoming Trump administration's top medical staff, including Johns Hopkins University surgeon Marty McCurry, whom President Trump chose to head the Food and Drug Administration, and Dave, an internist from Florida and former Republican congressman. It has played a central role in the election of politicians and members of parliament. According to the report, Mr. Weldon is President Trump's choice to head the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
File: Jay Bhattacharya speaks at the 2023 Forbes Healthcare Summit at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City on December 5, 2023. (Photo by Taylor Hill/Getty Images)
Mr. Bhattacharya and Mr. Makary collaborated on the blueprint for a proposed commission to investigate the country's coronavirus response, the report said.
McCurry and Weldon, both of whom were appointed by President Trump, and Janet Nesheiwat, a family and emergency physician whom the president-elect nominated as surgeon general, also must be approved by the Senate.
Trump appoints Dr. Oz to important HHS position in new administration
Nominees for NIH director must be approved by the Senate, which will have a Republican majority starting in January. (Getty Images)
Bhattacharyya was a prominent critic of the federal government's response to the coronavirus outbreak early in the pandemic. She co-authored an open letter in October 2020, during President Trump's first term, urging the government to maintain “focused protections” for vulnerable populations, including the elderly, while winding down the pandemic-induced government shutdown. asked.
The proposal was supported by Republican lawmakers and many Americans who are critical of the government shutdown and want a return to pre-pandemic life. But public health experts, including then-NIH Director Francis S. Collins, called the proposal premature and dangerous amid the spread of COVID-19 at a time when a vaccine was not yet available. criticized.
Bhattacharya also called for scaling back the powers of some of the 27 institutes and centers that make up the NIH, saying some career civil servants have misshaped national policy in the midst of a pandemic and allowed dissent. He claimed that there was not.
The nominee for NIH director will not be officially announced until President-elect Donald Trump does. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
He, along with other critics of the agency, was joined by former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci, who helped shape the nation's coronavirus response in the Trump and Biden administrations before resigning from the federal government in December 2022. criticized.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
The NIH is also under investigation by members of Congress over its response to the pandemic, with Republicans accusing the agency's leadership of mishandling the virus and calling for an overhaul of the agency.
Current and former NIH officials, including Fauci, have defended the agency's response, saying federal leaders generally did their best to combat the virus.
