{"id":23277,"date":"2025-03-05T14:05:24","date_gmt":"2025-03-05T15:05:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=23277"},"modified":"2025-03-05T15:30:23","modified_gmt":"2025-03-05T15:30:23","slug":"trumps-nominee-for-n-i-h-chief-faces-questions-from-senators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=23277","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s Nominee for N.I.H. Chief Faces Questions From Senators"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a Stanford University health economist who came to prominence crusading against lockdowns during the coronavirus pandemic, faced questioning from the Senate health committee on Wednesday morning as President Trump\u2019s nominee to direct the National Institutes of Health.<\/p>\n

The agency, the world\u2019s largest funder of biomedical research, with a $48 billion budget and 27 separate institutes and centers, has been rocked lately by the Trump administration\u2019s efforts to block government spending<\/a> and shrink the federal work force<\/a>. Hours before Wednesday\u2019s hearing, the Department of Government Efficiency, the cost-cutting group led by Elon Musk, trumpeted the cancellation<\/a> of N.I.H. grants.<\/p>\n

Dr. Bhattacharya, who has a medical degree and is a professor of medicine but has never practiced, has expressed an interest in restructuring the agency and reducing the power of \u201cscientific bureaucrats\u201d who he has said<\/a> end up \u201cdominating a field for a very long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

His views on medicine and public health have at times put Dr. Bhattacharya at odds with many of the scientists whose research the N.I.H. oversees.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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While he has defended vaccines and has said he was dubious that they caused autism, Dr. Bhattacharya told an interviewer last year<\/a> that he could not rule out a link. \u201cI don\u2019t know that for a fact,\u201d he said. Extensive evidence shows no link<\/a> between immunizations and autism.<\/p>\n

Dr. Bhattacharya became a go-to witness in court cases challenging Covid policies, including mask mandates. In several cases, judges said he was disregarding facts or was untrustworthy. His detractors note that while he has published studies on health policy issues \u2014 like drug prices and the link between different types of health insurance and H.I.V. deaths \u2014 he is not a scientist conducting biomedical research, the core mission of the agency.<\/p>\n

But supporters have said that Dr. Bhattacharya could bring needed reform to the N.I.H. and have defended some of his contrarian views on Covid.<\/p>\n

Dr. Bhattacharya burst into the news at the height of the pandemic in October 2020, when he co-wrote an anti-lockdown treatise<\/a>, the Great Barrington Declaration, that argued for \u201cfocused protection\u201d \u2014 a strategy that would focus on protecting the elderly and vulnerable while letting the virus spread among younger, healthier people.<\/p>\n

The nation\u2019s medical leadership, including Dr. Francis S. Collins and Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, then director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, denounced the plan. Referring to Dr. Bhattacharya and his co-authors as \u201cfringe epidemiologists,\u201d Dr. Collins wrote in an email that \u201cthere needs to be a quick and devastating takedown of its premises.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Dr. Collins, who later stepped down as the N.I.H. director to pursue his laboratory research, retired last week<\/a> in anticipation of Dr. Bhattacharya\u2019s arrival.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a Stanford University health economist who came to prominence crusading against lockdowns during the coronavirus pandemic, faced questioning from the Senate health committee on Wednesday morning as President Trump\u2019s nominee to direct the National Institutes of Health.The agency, the world\u2019s largest funder of biomedical research, with a $48 billion budget and 27 separate institutes and centers, has been rocked lately by the Trump administration\u2019s efforts to block government spending and shrink the federal work force. Hours before Wednesday\u2019s hearing, the Department of Government Efficiency, the cost-cutting group led by Elon Musk, trumpeted the cancellation of N.I.H. grants.Dr. Bhattacharya, who has a medical degree and is a professor of medicine but has never practiced, has expressed an interest in restructuring the agency and reducing the power of \u201cscientific bureaucrats\u201d who he has said end up \u201cdominating a field for a very long time.\u201dHis views on medicine and public health have at times put Dr. Bhattacharya at odds with many of the scientists whose research the N.I.H. oversees.While he has defended vaccines and has said he was dubious that they caused autism, Dr. Bhattacharya told an interviewer last year that he could not rule out a link. \u201cI don\u2019t know that for a fact,\u201d he said. Extensive evidence shows no link between immunizations and autism.Dr. Bhattacharya became a go-to witness in court cases challenging Covid policies, including mask mandates. In several cases, judges said he was disregarding facts or was untrustworthy. His detractors note that while he has published studies on health policy issues \u2014 like drug prices and the link between different types of health insurance and H.I.V. deaths \u2014 he is not a scientist conducting biomedical research, the core mission of the agency.But supporters have said that Dr. Bhattacharya could bring needed reform to the N.I.H. and have defended some of his contrarian views on Covid.Dr. Bhattacharya burst into the news at the height of the pandemic in October 2020, when he co-wrote an anti-lockdown treatise, the Great Barrington Declaration, that argued for \u201cfocused protection\u201d \u2014 a strategy that would focus on protecting the elderly and vulnerable while letting the virus spread among younger, healthier people.The nation\u2019s medical leadership, including Dr. Francis S. Collins and Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, then director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, denounced the plan. Referring to Dr. Bhattacharya and his co-authors as \u201cfringe epidemiologists,\u201d Dr. Collins wrote in an email that \u201cthere needs to be a quick and devastating takedown of its premises.\u201dDr. Collins, who later stepped down as the N.I.H. director to pursue his laboratory research, retired last week in anticipation of Dr. Bhattacharya\u2019s arrival.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23279,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23277"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23280,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23277\/revisions\/23280"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}