6 things to know about Jay Bhattacharya, Trump's pick to lead the National Institutes of Health

By Ryan Foley, Christian Post Reporter Friday, December 06, 2024

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration that challenged the established consensus on COVID-19 policy, appears on 'The Megyn Kelly Show.' — Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration that challenged the established consensus on COVID-19 policy, appears on "The Megyn Kelly Show." | Screenshot: YouTube/Megyn Kelly

Emerged as a prominent critic of Dr. Anthony Fauci

In 2020, Bhattacharya co-authored The Great Barrington Declaration. Signed by hundreds of thousands of concerned citizens, doctors and medical and public health scientists, the document warned that the lockdown policies implemented to stop the spread of the coronavirus were "producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health."

Examples of the negative consequences of the COVID-19 lockdowns listed include "lower childhood vaccination rates, worsening cardiovascular disease outcomes, fewer cancer screenings and deteriorating mental health," predicting "greater excess mortality in years to come" as a result with "the working class and younger members of society carrying the heaviest burden." The document also condemned "keeping students out of school" during the pandemic as a "grave injustice."

Rather than blanket lockdown policies, the Great Barrington Declaration called for "focused protection" directed at the elderly and infirm at most risk from COVID-19 while allowing everyone else to continue to go about their lives as usual.

The declaration seemingly drew the ire of then-NIH Director Francis Collins, who privately called the document "fringe" and called for a published "take down."

Bhattacharya elaborated on his position on COVID-19 lockdowns in an April 2021 article he co-wrote for the European Journal of Clinical Investigation titled "Assessing Mandatory Stay-at-Home and Business Closure Effects on the Spread of COVID-19."

Bhattacharya's positions on lockdowns put him on a collision course with Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former head of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, an agency of NIH, who emerged as the strongest advocate for stringent COVID-19 lockdowns.

In 2023, when Fauci proclaimed that he had such strong "personal ethics" that his Catholic faith was something he did not "really need to do," Bhattacharya responded by saying, "Hard to say which is worse — his theology or his science."