President-elect Donald Trump's latest leadership pick for the National Institutes of Health once published an open letter slamming the COVID-19 lockdown, while promoting "herd immunity" as a solution to the pandemic.
"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," Trump wrote in a statement released Tuesday, AP News reported.
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine, economic and health research policy at Stanford University whose research focuses not on the science of health but the economics of health care, was shadow-banned on Twitter after he joined in 2021 and started sharing misinformation regarding the pandemic, according to reporting by the Wall Street Journal. His account was fully reinstated after Elon Musk bought the platform and invited Bhattacharya to defend his output.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, and before vaccines were available, Bhattacharya encouraged "low-risk" people to live normally to build immunity to the infectious disease while people at higher risk were protected in an open letter dubbed the Great Barrington Declaration, written by three medical experts, including Bhattacharya, in October 2020, AP News reported.
At the time, then-NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins called the letter dangerous and "not mainstream science."
"I think the lockdowns were the single biggest public health mistake," Bhattacharya later said during a panel discussion organized by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in March 2021.
The Senate will have to approve Bhattacharya's appointment before officially takes office.
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