The Senate has confirmed Jay Bhattacharya as the new director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) with a party-line vote of 53 to 47.
The big picture: Bhattacharya rose to fame during the COVID-19 pandemic for criticizing measures like masking orders and school closures, advocating for the idea of herd immunity as outlined in the Great Barrington Declaration.
- Bhattacharya aims to lead NIH by supporting replicable, reproducible, and generalizable science, addressing the issue of public distrust towards health officials.
- The new NIH director also plans to align with the agenda of President Trump and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., focusing on chronic illness research over infectious diseases.
Go deeper: NIH, under Bhattacharya’s leadership, will continue to be the largest funder of biomedical research worldwide, providing grants to over 300,000 researchers across various institutions.
- The agency has faced challenges due to grant restrictions, funding cuts, and mass firings under the previous administration, affecting its operations and partnerships with private universities.
