Covid lockdown sceptic Jay Bhattacharya expected to be Trump’s pick for NIH director
WASHINGTON – Jay Bhattacharya has emerged as the top candidate to be President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to run the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Washington Post reported on Saturday, citing three people familiar with the matter.
Stanford University professor and Covid-19 lockdown sceptic, Jay Bhattacharya, met with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) this week, and impressed him with his proposals to overhaul the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the report said.
Trump’s transition team did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
The pick for NIH director is likely to be announced in the coming days, but plans may change and another candidate may emerge, according to the Financial Times, citing sources familiar with the matter.
With an annual budget of $48bn, NIH is the biggest government-funded biomedical research agency in the world, providing more than 60,000 grants a year to support medical and scientific research.
Trump picked the vaccine sceptic Robert Kennedy Jr. earlier this month to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, the United States’ top health agency, which oversees NIH and other health agencies.
