Who is Jay Bhattacharya? NIH chief to take over as acting head of US CDC
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "Who is Jay Bhattacharya? NIH chief to take over as acting head of US CDC")
File photo of Dr Jay Bhattacharya. Photograph: (Wikimedia Commons)
Bhattacharya succeeds Jim O’Neill, who served as both the acting CDC director and deputy secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. His appointment marks the latest development in a series of leadership changes over the past several months.
Dr Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institute of Health under the US Department of Health and Human Services, will take over as acting director of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention of the US, according to NBC News.
Bhattacharya succeeds Jim O’Neill, who had served simultaneously as the acting CDC director and deputy secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. His appointment marks the latest development in a series of leadership changes that have unfolded across federal health agencies over the past several months.
Former CDC chief Susan Monarez was dismissed in August after just 29 days in the role. In testimony before the Senate health committee, she claimed Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. removed her for refusing to rubber-stamp changes to vaccine guidance, an allegation Kennedy has denied. Her removal prompted several senior CDC officials to resign in protest.
Who is Jay Bhattacharya?
Jay Bhattacharya is a professor of health policy at Stanford University, who also served as a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, Stanford Freeman Spogli Institute, and the Hoover Institution.
He heads Stanford's Centre for Demography and the Economics of Health and Ageing, where his work examines government programs, biomedical innovation, and health economics. He also co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration, which argued against widespread lockdowns in October 2020. His peer-reviewed research has been published in journals across sectors, including economics, statistics, law, medicine, public health, and health policy.
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A former Stanford Medicine professor, Bhattacharya became a prominent and controversial figure during the Covid-19 pandemic for his opposition to lockdown measures. In addition, Bhattacharya has focused his research on some of Kennedy's areas of interest, including chronic disease and nutrition. He has also inspired scientists to pursue high-risk, high-reward ideas, as well as to conduct more replication studies to substantiate their results.
