A 56-year-old physician and professor at Stanford University School of Medicine, Bhattacharya became a household name in the early days of COVID-19 for criticizing the government's COVID policies. In fact, he was one of three authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, an October 2020 open letter maintaining that lockdowns were causing irreparable harm.
"This selection by President Trump is good because of the issues of medical freedom and government overreach when it comes to people's personal health decisions since the COVID pandemic," Walker Wildmon of AFA Action responds. "This appointment … is going to bring accountability and transparency to these various health departments and agencies when it comes to government overreach and some of the misdeeds by these pharmaceutical companies."
Twila Brase, R.N. and president/co-founder of Citizens' Council for Health Freedom, also approves.
"Just so that people understand, NIH has a $48 billion budget with 18,000 people working, and every one of those dollars needs to be expended wisely," she notes. "Hopefully Bhattacharya will make sure that only good research, worthy research is taking place."
In a recent statement, President-elect Trump said Bhattacharya and Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will "restore the NIH to a Gold Standard of Medical Research as they examine the underlying causes of, and solutions to, America's biggest Health challenges, including our Crisis of Chronic Illness and Disease."
Editor's Note: AFA Action is an affiliate of the American Family Association, the parent organization of the American Family News Network, which operates AFN.net.
