Washington:
The US Senate officially confirmed the appointment of Jay Bhattacharya, an Indian-American professor at Stanford School of Medicine, as the new Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on Tuesday.
Mr. Bhattacharya’s confirmation was secured with a vote of 53-47 during the first session of the roll call in the 119th Congress.
President Donald Trump’s nomination statement described Mr. Bhattacharya as a health policy professor at Stanford University, a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a senior fellow at various prestigious institutions.
He currently leads Stanford’s Centre for Demography and Economics of Health and Ageing, focusing on government programs, biomedical innovation, and economics.
Mr. Bhattacharya is also known for co-authoring the Great Barrington Declaration, proposing an alternative to lockdowns in October 2020. His research, spanning various disciplines, has been published in reputable journals.
The statement indicated that Mr. Bhattacharya and newly appointed US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will collaborate to elevate the NIH’s status to a “Gold Standard of Medical Research.”
Following his confirmation, US Senator Mitch McConnell praised Mr. Bhattacharya’s extensive background in medical research and expressed confidence in his ability to provide strong leadership at the NIH.
“I voted today to confirm Dr. Jay Bhattacharya to lead the National Institutes of Health. With his expertise in medical research, I am confident that Dr. Bhattacharya will offer solid leadership at the NIH,” said Senator McConnell.
In a separate development earlier this year, the US Senate approved Robert F. Kennedy Jr., known for his stance against vaccines, as the US Health and Human Services Secretary with a vote of 52-48.
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