Bhattacharya has a history of undermining the CDC’s pandemic guidance. In 2020, the then NIH head, Dr. Francis Collins, labeled the former Stanford University physician and economist “fringe,” after Bhattacharya helped author the “Great Barrington Declaration,” which called for the end of the coronavirus lockdowns. In 2024, Bhattacharya criticized the CDC’s recommendation for widespread masking during the Covid-19 pandemic, calling it “pseudo science.”
Bhattacharya will replace former Deputy Health Secretary Jim O’Neill, a market-fundamentalist Silicon Valley investor and longtime associate of billionaire Peter Thiel. Bhattacharya also has the support of powerful figures among Trump supporters, including Thiel, Joe Rogan, and Elon Musk, who claims Twitter suppressed Bhattacharya’s views before the Tesla founder bought the platform.
O’Neill replaced Susan Monarez, the last Senate-approved CDC director, who was fired last summer after only 28 days in office. Monarez was ousted after she refused “to commit, in advance, to approving every” recommendation by the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, “regardless of scientific evidence” and “to dismiss career officials responsible for vaccine policy without cause.”
