Donald Trump Names Jay Bhattacharya Director of the National Institutes of Health | Latest News India

US President-elect Donald Trump has appointed Jay Bhattacharya as director of the National Institutes of Health.

Bhattacharya, an economist from Calcutta who studied medicine at Stanford University, has been a critic of the US COVID policy. He will now lead the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the largest public funder of medical research in the United States, and oversee a $47.3 billion budget.

The NIH has come under scrutiny from Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Donald Trump’s pick to head the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the NIH.

The NIH director leads 27 institutes and centers focused on early-stage research, from emerging pandemic vaccines to new drug targets.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Bhattacharya, along with two other scientists, published the Great Barrington Declaration in October 2020. The statement called for a return to normal life for those who are not vulnerable to the virus.

Bhattacharya later sued the government, claiming it pressured social media platforms to censor his opinions. He received his medical degree from Stanford University School of Medicine in 1997 and his doctorate in economics from Stanford University in 2000.

A research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research, Bhattacharya also directs the Stanford Center for Demography and Economics of Health and Aging.

His research focuses on the health and well-being of vulnerable populations and examines the role of government programs, biomedical innovation, and economics.

Jay Bhattacharya’s recent work includes studying the epidemiology of Covid-19 and assessing policy responses to the pandemic. His broader interests also include the impact of population aging on health and medical spending, measuring physician performance in the context of payment systems, and the impact of biomedical innovations on health, according to Stanford University.

On November 14, Donald Trump nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be the next U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS).

With Reuters, ANI inputs