President-elect Trump has chosen Stanford University professor Jay Bhattacharya to lead the National Institutes of Health, his transition announced Tuesday.
If confirmed by the Senate, Bhattacharya would be in charge of implementing the incoming Trump administration’s bold goals to reform the agency. Support for the NIH before the Covid-19 pandemic used to be a rare point of common ground for Democrats and Republicans, and the agency got budget increases year after year. But a more combative era is here.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s pick for Health and Human Services secretary, has suggested he wants to replace hundreds of NIH employees the day Trump takes office. RFK Jr. has also said he wants to shift the agency’s attention from infectious disease toward chronic disease.
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