Donald Trump has appointed Jay Bhattacharya, a prominent lockdown sceptic and co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, to lead the National Institutes of Health. The Telegraph has more.
Dr. Bhattacharya, who argued that blanket lockdown restrictions during the Covid pandemic caused “unnecessary suffering and death”, will take charge of the federal research agency, if confirmed by the Senate.
In a statement, Mr. Trump noted the Stanford University professor’s opposition to lockdowns and said he would work alongside his new Health Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to “improve health and save lives”.
“Together, Jay and RFK Jr. will restore the NIH to a gold standard of medical research as they examine the underlying causes of, and solutions to, America’s biggest health challenges, including our crisis of chronic illness and disease,” he said late on Tuesday.
If confirmed by senators, Dr. Bhattacharya will take charge of an institute with a $48 billion budget where he has previously claimed civil servants wield too much power over policy.
His nomination marks a wider shake-up of the health establishment, along with appointments of several vaccine sceptics including Mr. Kennedy, Marty Makary who will lead the Food and Drug Administration and Dave Weldon as head of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Dr. Bhattacharya is one of the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration in October 2020, in which he argued for the end of lockdowns while devoting “overwhelming resources” to protect the vulnerable through measures such as home delivery services.
“Lockdowns delay the time until herd immunity occurs and will incur unnecessary suffering and death to vulnerable and non-vulnerable alike,” he wrote in the Telegraph in October 2020.
“A focused protection approach will save lives in both the short and long term.”
Also in the Telegraph, he argued last month that universities had manufactured an “illusion” of consensus on lockdown policies, suppressing scientific debate by “Stalinesque” means.
“Public health officials sacrificed the understandable desire for an open exchange of ideas on an altar of infection control; it was supposedly too dangerous to let the public see that there were qualified experts who disagreed on the wisdom of lockdowns,” he said.
Responding to the nomination, Dr. Bhattacharya said:
I am honoured and humbled by President Donald Trump’s nomination of me to be the next NIH Director. We will reform American scientific institutions so that they are worthy of trust again and will deploy the fruits of excellent science to make America healthy again.
Recently, Dr. Bhattacharya gave an excellent lecture laying out his positions on the pandemic and concerns for the loss of free speech in science which is worth a watch.
It seems, however, that Dr. Bhattacharya still remains unpersoned by Google. In searching for “Jay Bhattacharya” I didn’t get the usual suggestions accompanied by a little picture of the prominent figure in question.
Using his full name, Jayanta, we do get some suggestions for specific people – five in fact. But none of them are him. Google wonders if we might be interested in Jayanta Bhattacharya the “best astrologer in Kolkata”, or in the “Professor of Mining Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur”, or the “Director of the India laboratory at THSTI”. But it’s sure we won’t be interested in the Stanford Professor of Medicine who’s just been picked by the U.S. President-elect to lead the NIH.
To be fair to Google, if you actually hit enter on the search you do get a search page about Jay himself. But it’s no thanks to the suggestions in the search bar. Is Google reluctant to accept that the Faucian establishment is crumbling and there’s a new regime in town?
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