Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of health policy at Stanford University, is a top contender to lead the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the next Trump administration, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Bhattacharya was a key figure who spoke out against COVID-19 lockdowns and mandates during the pandemic.
The agency's $48 billion budget funds medical research on cancers, vaccines, and other diseases through competitive grants to researchers at institutions across the nation. The agency also conducts its own research with thousands of scientists working at NIH labs in Bethesda, Maryland.
"As infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists we have grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies," the letter reads.
In the letter, Bhattacharya and his co-authors described the COVID-19 vaccines as merely one aspect of public health policy, which they said should also focus on immunity through natural infection due to the low risks the disease posed to the young and healthy.
Bhattacharya and his co-authors were opposed to both lockdowns and mask mandates.
Emails obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request show that former NIH Director Francis Collins -- who left the post in December 2021 but continued to work as a science adviser to President Joe Biden -- expressing concern that the declaration was "getting a lot of attention."
"There needs to be a quick and devastating public takedown of its premises," the October 2020 email from Collins to Fauci reads.
Research by the University of California Riverside released in March 2023 found that lockdowns alone contributed to a more than 5 percent dip in U.S. gross domestic product and caused a 7.5 percent dip in consumer spending.
NIH research into the impact of COVID policies on children has also found that these policies caused children to miss important opportunities for crucial early socialization in the first five years of life. Since then, the NIH has found a marked increase in children with developmental delays, learning disabilities, and behavioral disorders.
Bhattacharya told The Epoch Times that these and other costs were ignored. He particularly blamed senior health officials for this, who he said imposed a narrative of medical unanimity on how to respond to COVID-19 that didn't truly exist.
If Bhattacharya is chosen and confirmed, he would be subordinate to Kennedy if the latter is also confirmed. Trump's HHS secretary pick has said he would fire around 600 NIH employees on his first day.
"We need to act fast, and we want to have those people in place on Jan. 20, so that on Jan. 21, 600 people are going to walk into offices at NIH and 600 people are going to leave," Kennedy said last week at the Genius Network Annual Event in Scottsdale, Arizona.