An economist turned pandemic celebrity, who loudly and repeatedly advocated for mass infections with the coronavirus, has been nominated by Donald Trump as the new director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This choice continues听a trend toward the institutionalization of pseudoscience听in the United States by putting the foxes in charge of the hen house.
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya will be in charge of the NIH鈥檚 nearly 48-billion-dollar budget, which serves as the world鈥檚 largest source of medical research funding. Created in 1887, the NIH鈥檚 mission is to finance studies into living things in order to improve health, increase longevity, and address disease and disability. In April 2020, the NIH announced a public-private partnership to accelerate the development of treatments and vaccines for COVID-19. This kind of investment, however, requires its leadership to take pandemics seriously.
Bhattacharya, an economist with a medical degree who听听and does not practice medicine, is not slated to provide continuity at the NIH. On the contrary, he has听听鈥渁n absolute revamping of the scientific community.鈥� Month after month, he has stood in opposition to many of the public health measures against the new coronavirus and refused to change his mind when the evidence contradicted his predictions, instead relying on听听when his mistaken views did not get the reach he was hoping for. That someone so consistently wrong about the biggest public health emergency of our age can ascend to such a high position should concern anyone who values the self-correcting mechanism of the scientific endeavour.
To assess Bhattacharya鈥檚 fitness for the NIH director鈥檚 chair, we cannot ignore听, both its callousness and its underlying economic agenda. Signed on October 4, 2020, well before the availability of vaccines, the eight-paragraph credo denounced the prevailing public health measures and put forth a simplistic plan: the vulnerable should be kept in isolation while the vast majority of the population would return to their normal lives. They would contract the virus, survive, and become immune for life. The doors of nursing homes could open again and this puny virus would be vanquished. It was a thinly-masked 鈥渓et 鈥榚r rip鈥� strategy, a sacrifice at the altar of normalcy. This piece of wishful thinking was authored by Pr. Martin Kulldorff, a biostatistician at Harvard; Pr. Sunetra Gupta, an epidemiologist from Oxford; and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya. But someone else had been in the room to guide the drafting of this document.
The invisible hand behind the Great Barrington Declaration was that of Jeffrey Tucker, the听听of a libertarian think tank named the American Institute for Economic Research, headquartered in the Massachusetts town of Great Barrington. A casual look at Tucker鈥檚 history reveals beliefs firmly opposed to public health. He penned听听advocating for child labour, as well as an听听arguing that 鈥渢he time to smoke is when you are a teen,鈥� since 鈥測our lungs are strong.鈥� He remarked that he didn鈥檛 know what people meant when they called cigarettes addictive: 鈥淚t鈥檚 not like cigarettes take away your free will,鈥� which is an easy line to write when your think tank is听, the tobacco giant. To associate with such a man when you pretend to care about public health speaks volume.
As journalist Walker Bragman put it on听, 鈥淏hattacharya and his Great Barrington Declaration co-authors were providing scientific cover for an economic agenda supported by right-wing business interests.鈥� We may wish for science not to be political, but it cannot be easily disentangled from the opinions and priorities of the people funding and conducting it. Scientific ideals may transcend politics, but when research, financing, and technological development are done by humans, political beliefs cannot be avoided. To claim that the authors of the Declaration were apolitical experts simply following the science would be ridiculous. In December 2022, Pr. Kulldorff听听out the following in reference to Dr. Anthony Fauci鈥檚 efforts to rein in the virus: 鈥淔aucism and Fascism are not the same, but there are some similarities.鈥�
The Great Barrington Declaration was a political statement under the guise of public health advice, and Bhattacharya鈥檚 refusal to part with its erroneous solution undoubtedly caused people to downplay the severity of the pandemic. Dr. Jonathan Howard, who has meticulously documented the COVID contrarians鈥� failed prophecies over the years,听: 鈥淭hey became defense attorneys for the virus.鈥澨�
To put this into concrete terms, we can look at Florida. On July 26, 2021, Bhattacharya participated in a听听with Governor Ron DeSantis and reassured Floridians: 鈥淲e have protected the vulnerable鈥攂y vaccinating the older population, we have provided them with enormous protection against severe disease and death.鈥� He disagreed with people who fretted over case numbers: he claimed that cases and deaths had been 鈥渄ecoupled.鈥� The Delta variant, he said, did not change his perspective 鈥渋n any fundamental way.鈥�
The hitch was that the truly vulnerable were not well protected. Less than听听of Florida鈥檚 population had received two doses of the vaccine when Bhattacharya uttered his soothing words, and the Delta wave which was gaining momentum would prove devastating to the state. Most Floridians who died of COVID-19 were killed by the virus听after听Bhattacharya reassured them,听. The chief medical officer of a South Florida healthcare system contradicted the Great Barrington Declaration鈥檚 author by听, 鈥淲e are seeing a surge like we鈥檝e not seen before in terms of the patients coming. It鈥檚 the sheer number coming in at the same time.鈥� Florida鈥檚 COVID patients during the Delta wave tended to be听听and had fewer health issues than before.
Dismissing this reality is easy when you have never treated a COVID patient in your life and when you co-authored听听in April 2020 that made the virus appear less threatening than it was. Bhattacharya鈥檚 team drew the blood of over 3,000 people living in Santa Clara County, California, to see how many had antibodies against the coronavirus. They concluded that the virus had infected many more people than suspected, which meant that its fatality rate was lower than expected.
Problems, however, were later uncovered: many of the people who had donated blood had not been randomly selected but were residents of a wealthy section of Silicon Valley who had been invited to participate by听; the invitation presented the testing as a way to find out if they could 鈥渞eturn to work without fear,鈥� thus aiming for people who knew or suspected of having recently been infected; and the entire thing had been听听by the founder of JetBlue Airways who wanted to keep his planes in the air. I would argue here that science knelt in front of politics.
The Great Barrington Declaration failed. While right-wing spotlights were shone on it and Bhattacharya and his fellow COVID minimizers did interview after interview advocating for it, Americans did not wholesale abandon all precautions and seek out a date with the virus. Some did, but not all. To this day,听听have died of COVID-19. Had the Declaration been followed to the letter, many more would have paid its price with their lives. It is now abundantly clear that a prior infection of COVID-19 does not grant us lifelong immunity; that, though the vaccines are effective, even those of us vaccinated against the virus can catch it and transmit it; and that long COVID is real. In April 2021, however, Bhattacharya was听听podcast listeners that the central problem right now was 鈥渢he fear that people still feel about COVID.鈥�
In an听听to Dr. Anthony Fauci four days after the signing of the Declaration, then-director of the NIH Dr. Francis Collins referred to its authors as 鈥渢hree fringe epidemiologists.鈥� He wasn鈥檛 wrong. Now, one of them is taking over Collins鈥� role, essentially becoming听听to tell everyone, from a position of authority, that shark research is not a priority and that it鈥檚 safe to go back in the water.
Bhattacharya, like so many of his fellow medical celebrities, followed a new path of influence made possible by social media. He weaponized the people鈥檚 frustration with flawed systems and their anxiety at having their way of life changed, cozying up with pro-industry lobbyists who wanted to put dollar signs ahead of human lives, and became a media darling, a public intellectual, a luminary who seduced people with contrarian and antiestablishment views. When Americans wanted to go back to partying, Bhattacharya was there to quell any residual fear. When parents were scared of vaccinating their children, he was there to amplify their fear. And when wealthy elites like Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis wanted a touch of scientific legitimacy to their pandemic denialism, he showed up again and again.
With Trump鈥檚 return to the White House, alternative facts will no longer simply be courted for the sake of balance; they will be enshrined. Science will have to not simply be tortured but be reshaped to match the administration鈥檚 feelings. Dr. Jay Bhattacharya was chosen for a reason, but he was probably not the only one interviewed for the position. Brian Nosek鈥攁 professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, the co-founder and director of the Centre for Open Science, and an expert whom I had the privilege of interviewing back in听鈥攕hared听听on Bluesky the day after Trump announced Bhattacharya鈥檚 nomination. He confirmed via email.
鈥淚 was called by the transition team for initial vetting several days ago. (I assumed for this role, but I don鈥檛 actually know.) In any case, with no follow-up, I guess my answers to the vetting questions were not up to snuff!鈥� He further revealed they had asked him six questions:
- Do you have a criminal history?
- Do you have potentially embarrassing news stories about your personal history?
- Do you oppose mandates in general?
- Do you oppose vaccine mandates?
- Do you support or oppose vaccines?
- Would you be able to move to D.C.?
These are not the questions you ask to find the best candidate to lead the world鈥檚 biggest funding agency of biomedical research. These are the questions you ask to test someone鈥檚 loyalty to your beliefs.
Bhattacharya鈥檚 nomination finalizes the top-down doctoring of America鈥檚 health institutions. Trump鈥檚 choice to head the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is Dr. Mehmet Oz, who despite being a dedicated cardiothoracic surgeon made a name for himself promoting bogus weight-loss pills and dietary supplements. He is joined by his fellow nominee, Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, a Fox News contributor chosen to be the next Surgeon General whose face adorns听听claimed to 鈥渂oost your immune system,鈥� even though this claim is entirely听pseudoscientific听in nature. The Centers for Disease Control will, following Senate confirmation, be under the authority of Dr. Dave Weldon, who erroneously promoted the idea that the vaccine preservative thimerosal听. Then there鈥檚 Dr. Marty Makary as head of the Food and Drug Administration, another COVID minimizer who had faith in the Great Barrington Declaration鈥檚 dogma of herd immunity. Overseeing Makary, Oz, Weldon, and Bhattacharya will be Robert F. Kennedy Jr as head of Health and Human Services, one of the most prominent anti-vaccine activists of the modern era.
We often refer to COVID-19 as a once-in-a-generation event, but nature holds no such promise. Already, scientists are worried about H5N1 avian flu. If it acquired the ability to spread from person to person as SARS-CoV-2 did, what would this upcoming administration鈥檚 response be?
Given their pseudoscientific beliefs and prioritization of the economy over human lives, why would they inject money into vaccine development? Why would they counsel people to temporarily limit their contacts with others, to wear a mask, to switch to remote work? Why would they say anything other than, 鈥淒on鈥檛 worry. We鈥檒l reach herd immunity soon.
鈥淲e鈥檙e from the government and we鈥檙e here to help.鈥�
Note:听If you need more evidence that Dr. Jay Bhattacharya was wrong about COVID-19 and misled the public in multiple interviews, I invite you to spend a few hours reading through Dr. Jonathan Howard鈥檚 documentation of听听at听Science-Based Medicine.
