Joe.My.God. LGBT News
The New York Times reports:
President-elect Donald J. Trump said on Tuesday evening that he had selected Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a Stanford physician and economist whose authorship of an anti-lockdown treatise during the coronavirus pandemic made him a central figure in a bitter public health debate, to be the director of the National Institutes of Health.
If confirmed by the Senate, Dr. Bhattacharya would lead the world’s premier medical research agency, with a $48 billion budget and 27 separate institutes and centers, each with its own research agenda, focusing on different diseases like cancer and diabetes.
Dr. Bhattacharya, who is not a practicing physician, has called for overhauling the N.I.H. and limiting the power of civil servants who, he believes, played too prominent a role in shaping federal policy during the pandemic.
The Associated Press reports:
The decision to choose Bhattacharya for the post is yet another reminder of the ongoing impact of the COVID pandemic on the politics on public health. Bhattacharya was one of three authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, an October 2020 open letter maintaining that lockdowns were causing irreparable harm.
The document — which came before the availability of COVID-19 vaccines and during the first Trump administration — promoted “herd immunity,” the idea that people at low risk should live normally while building up immunity to COVID-19 through infection.
The CDC pick also promoted herd immunity.
Trump just picked Dr. Jay Bhattacharya to lead the National Institutes of Health.
In 2020, Bhattacharya pushed anti-COVID lockdown theories that were promptly dismissed as crankery — fringe policy prescriptions that would have led to millions of unnecessary deaths. www.nytimes.com/2024/11/26/u…
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1.bsky.social) November 26, 2024 at 9:45 PM
Breaking News: Donald Trump has picked Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, an author of a pandemic-era anti-lockdown treatise, to lead the National Institutes of Health.
— The New York Times (@nytimes.com) November 26, 2024 at 9:47 PM
“Everything You Need to Know About Donald Trump’s NIH Pick” – @walkerbragman.bsky.social brings receipts. He’s bad, really bad:
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan.bsky.social) November 26, 2024 at 9:27 PM