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On Tuesday evening, President-Elect Donald Trump made the best single decision of the transition period as he prepares to return to the White House in January. He named Dr. Jay Bhattacharya as head of the National Institutes of Health.

Dr. Bhattacharya is eminently qualified for this position; he graduated from the Stanford University School of Medicine with an MD in 1997, then received a Ph.D from Stanford Medicine in 2000. He has a BA, MA, MD and Ph.D, has worked as a professor of medicine, economics and health policy and is the director of Stanford’s Center for Demography and Economics of Health and Aging. 

But more importantly, Dr. Bhattacharya represents a complete rebuke and repudiation of Anthony Fauci, Francis Collins and previous leadership at NIH. Because unlike them, he’s not a career politician, he’s been a victim of the censorship and criticism that they never have, and he actually follows evidence and science instead of ideology. That’s why he and a few other scientists created the Great Barrington Declaration; a more reasonable blueprint for handling the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Because he dared speak up against the government overreach of lockdowns, school closures, and mask mandates, the media’s reaction to his appointment has been outrage. As always, seeing someone outside their circle running an important government agency is too much for them to handle. And that’s exactly why Bhattacharya is the best pick Trump has made yet.

Jay Bhattacharya NIH

Jay Bhattacharya, M.D., Ph.D., Professor of Health Policy, Stanford University, speaks at the Forbes Healthcare Summit Day 2 at Jazz Lincoln Center, New York, NY, December 5, 2023. (Photo by Anthony Behar/Sipa USA)

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya Is The Perfect Choice For NIH

Bhattacharya was one of the first to raise concerns about the way the government was handling COVID. He did so by leading a study conducted in the Santa Clara area early in 2020, examining the percentage of people who had antibodies consistent with a COVID infection. They found, unsurprisingly, that the virus was already significantly more widespread than testing had revealed.

That meant that the government’s response was already too late to stamp out the spread, and that the virus was far less dangerous than previously realized. Those facts were proven conclusively right almost immediately, but for publishing his results publicly, Bhattacharya faced immense criticism from the online “expert” community.

Then, he made it worse by helping create the Great Barrington Declaration, where he and two other scientists dismantled the policy of endless rolling lockdowns, school closures and mandates. Instead of forcing businesses to close and keeping young healthy people inside, Bhattacharya suggested focused protection. Society would try to keep elderly, high risk individuals as safe as possible, while younger, healthy people resumed mostly normal life.

It was quite obviously the only acceptable strategy; to minimize harm while focusing on what mattered most. Immediately, he was labeled a “fringe epidemiologist” by then-NIH head Francis Collins. Collins and Fauci quickly organized public responses to the Great Barrington Declaration. Not because they had better ideas, but because they were infuriated to see their dictates challenged by someone with qualifications.

Just imagine how much different, and better, our lives would be now if the roles were reversed. 

Bhattacharya would have ensured that government policy reflected reality, evidence, and common sense. Not the political authoritarianism of Anthony Fauci and Rochelle Walensky at the CDC. Instead of an endless stream of lies from Fauci, the public would have heard accurate, evidence-based suggestions. Ones that would have reduced the unnecessary panic of institutions, corporations and individuals.

Normal life would have resumed much more quickly, without the disastrous, ineffective mask mandates and shutdowns. 

Who wouldn’t have wanted that? Who could possibly argue, in late-2024, that focused protection was the only acceptable solution? Why, the media of course!

Here’s how the Associated Press headlined their story: “Trump picks Jay Bhattacharya, who backed COVID herd immunity, to lead National Institutes of Health.”

Except, of course, that’s not what Bhattacharya said. Or what he advocated for. But anything other than Fauci’s harmful, pointless doctrine is anathema to an ideologically biased media. 

Here’s how they phrased their coverage of his appointment in the story: “The decision to choose Bhattacharya for the post is yet another reminder of the ongoing impact of the COVID pandemic on the politics on public health.” Never, not once, would the AP ever say that Fauci’s dictates reflected the “politics” of public health. Because to them, Fauci, a hero to the progressive left, was not political. Bhattacharya is, because he rejected a Democratic Party icon.

Here’s how the New York Times covered his pick:

“He is the latest in a series of Trump health picks who came to prominence during the coronavirus pandemic and who hold views on medicine and public health that are at times outside the mainstream. The president-elect’s health choices, experts agree, suggest a shake-up is coming to the nation’s public health and biomedical establishment.”

Being anti-lockdown, anti-vaccine mandate, anti-mask mandate and anti-school closure should be the only acceptable policies of the “mainstream.” And if they aren’t, that’s an indictment on the “mainstream” itself, not on Bhattacharya. Similarly, if the “mainstream” can’t accept that inarguable reality, a “shake-up” is desperately needed. 

This is how they then describe his eminently reasonable, obviously correct views.

“More recently, amid widespread recognition of the economic and mental health harms caused by lockdowns and school closures, Dr. Bhattacharya’s views have been getting a second look, to the consternation of his critics, who have accused those entertaining his ideas of ‘sane-washing’ him.”

What an embarrassment. The “sane-washing” is and was done by the Times and other media outlets in dressing up absurdities like toddler masking, COVID vaccines for babies, school closures, and shutting down beaches. None of those policies received the derision and scorn saved for someone who was correct about COVID.

Naturally, NBC chimed in with more character assassination. 

“Many experts spoke up against the concept at the time,” they wrote about the GBD. “Several days after the Great Barrington Declaration came out, 80 researchers from the fields of public health, epidemiology and more published a joint letter in the medical journal The Lancet, calling the idea ‘a dangerous fallacy.'”

Of course, the fringe “experts” who signed that letter are never criticized for spreading the “dangerous fallacy” that lockdowns and masks worked, and that children should be kept out of schools indefinitely. The intellectual dishonesty knows no bounds.

This coverage is exactly why Dr. Bhattacharya was such a spectacular pick. Why the world would be a different place had he run NIH during COVID. He followed the evidence, the science and the data, and made correct predictions and assumptions. The media and their preferred icons didn’t. And now they can’t, and won’t, admit they were wrong. But as always, when the wrong people are upset, it’s a good sign that you’re on the right track.

We are definitely on the right track, thanks to Dr. Bhattacharya’s newfound influence.