Dr. Jay Bhattacharya Appointed as NIH Director in the U.S.

Indian-origin professor Dr. Jay Bhattacharya has been approved by the U.S. Senate as the Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Bhattacharya, a health policy expert at Stanford University, is a co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration and an anti-lockdown advocate during the COVID-19 pandemic. He was nominated by President Donald Trump. Bhattacharya’s research focuses on government health policies and biomedical innovation, and his appointment could bring significant changes to the health sector.

On March 25, the U.S. Senate approved Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, an Indian-origin American physician and professor of health policy at Stanford University, to lead the National Institutes of Health (NIH). NIH is the world’s largest government-funded biomedical research institution. Dr. Bhattacharya will be working under U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. President Donald Trump nominated Dr. Bhattacharya, a health economist, to lead NIH in November. However, there were ongoing questions regarding the appointments made by President Trump in the Health Department.