Who Is Jay Bhattacharya, Trump’s Potential Pick To Lead NIH
Jay Bhattacharya, has reportedly entered to the US President-elect’s transition team. He has been chosen for the post of next director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a nearly USD 50 billion agency that oversees the nation’s biomedical research.
The Stanford-trained physician and economist met with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has been appointed by Trump to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Washington’s top health agency which oversees NIH and other health agencies, reported the Washington Post citing three people.
The report said that Battacharya impressed Kennedy with his ideas to overhaul NIH by shifting the agency’s focus toward funding more innovative research.
He also recommended reducing the influence of some of its longest-serving career officials, among other ideas, claims the report. NIH awards funding grants to researchers, oversees clinical trials on its Maryland campus, and supports a variety of efforts to develop drugs and therapeutics.
Official statement regarding Battacharya’s appointment is yet to be made. The decision of who will lead NIH will not be final until the President-elect himself announces it.
The speculations is confirming Battacharya’s post comes as Trump is known to sometimes rebuff his advisers’ recommendations. The President-elect’s transition team has, reportedly, also looked at other candidates to lead NIA.
Hailed from India’s Kolkata, Jayanta “Jay” Bhattacharya is a Professor of Health Policy at Stanford University and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economics Research. He holds an MD and PhD in economics (both from Stanford University) and also directs Stanford’s Center for Demography and Economics of Health and Aging.
As per Stanford’s official website, Bhattacharya’s research focuses on the health and well-being of vulnerable populations, with a particular emphasis on the role of government programs, biomedical innovation, and economics. His recent research focuses on the epidemiology of COVID-19 as well as an evaluation of policy responses to the epidemic.
His research interests spread across the implications of population ageing for future population health and medical spending in developed countries, the measurement of physician performance tied to physician payment by insurers, and the role played by biomedical innovation on health.
Washington DC, US: The economist has published 135 articles in top peer-reviewed scientific journals in medicine, economics, health policy, epidemiology, statistics, law, and public health among other fields.
He was a prominent critic of the federal government’s COVID-19 response, co-writing an open letter known as the Great Barrington Declaration that called for rolling back coronavirus-related shutdowns while keeping “focused protections” for vulnerable populations, such as older Americans.
Written in 2020, the proposal won support from Republican politicians and some Americans eager to resume daily life, but was criticized as being unethical and infeasible by Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organization.
(With inputs from agencies)
