CEOs Kiss the Ring at Trump Family Crypto Forum at Mar-a-Lago
Bhattacharya has a history of undermining CDC pandemic guidelines. In 2020, then-NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins called the former Stanford University physician and economist “marginal,” after Bhattacharya helped write the “Great Barrington Declaration,” which called for an end to coronavirus lockdowns. In 2024, Bhattacharya critical the CDC’s recommendation for widespread masking during the Covid-19 pandemic, calling it “pseudo-science.”
Bhattacharya will replace the former Deputy Secretary of Health Jim O’Neilla fundamentalist Silicon Valley market investor and longtime associate of billionaire Peter Thiel. Bhattacharya also has support powerful figures among Trump supporters, including Thiel, Joe Rogan and Elon Musk, who claim Twitter removed Bhattacharya’s views before the Tesla founder purchased the platform.
O’Neill replaced Susan Monarez, the last Senate-approved CDC director, who was fired last summer after just 28 days in office. Monarez was ousted after refusing to “commit, in advance, to approving every” recommendation of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, “regardless of scientific evidence” and to “fire without cause career officials responsible for vaccine policy.”
