Dr. Jay Bhattacharya—the Stanford professor who is President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for the directorship of the National Institutes of Health—will bring transparency to this government agency, which sorely needs it.
I am an odd person to write a piece supporting Jay’s nomination to lead the NIH. During the pandemic, I disagreed with Jay on COVID-19 response. Jay supported the Great Barrington Declaration, while I favored a more active and engaged public health response, broadly although not completely along the lines of what was actually done in the United States. At times our differences were fundamental, other times pragmatic. Nonetheless, the differences of opinion between Jay and me on this subject were deep.
I debated Jay over Zoom on the topic of pandemic response, so I am well aware of his views on COVID-19 response, as he is of mine. Our debate was…
