Jay Bhattacharya: podcast appearances and interviews

Jay Bhattacharya is an American health economist and physician trained in economics at Stanford University. He has served as the director of the National Institutes of Health since 2025 and also assumed the role of acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2026. Bhattacharya was a professor of medicine, economics, and health research policy at Stanford University until March 2025, when he became an emeritus professor to join the NIH. His research has focused on the economics of health care, and he was an investigator at Stanford's Center for Demography and Economics of Health and Aging. In November 2024, he was nominated by President Donald Trump for the NIH directorship and was confirmed by the Senate in March 2025. Bhattacharya is notable for being the first Indian American to lead the NIH. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he was known for opposing the lockdowns and mask mandates implemented in 2020. He co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration alongside Martin Kulldorff and Sunetra Gupta, which argued for lifting restrictions on lower-risk populations to develop herd immunity through infection, while claiming that vulnerable individuals could be protected from the virus.