By John Klar, Contributing Writer, The Kennedy Beacon

Before he was confirmed as Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Dr. Jay Bhattacharya was a well-respected professor of medicine and health policy at Stanford University, from which he took an M.D. in medicine and a Ph.D. in economics, econometrics, and health economics.

Then came the COVID-19 pandemic and, unlike the majority of academics across the United States, Dr. Bhattacharya did not quickly fall in line with the normative narrative. Just days after the government ordered Americans to shelter-in-place, he co-authored an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal that questioned the rationale for lockdowns. Later, he was one of three authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, which codified resistance to government mandates.