NIH director Bhattacharya tapped as acting CDC head

What happened

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the director of the National Institutes of Health, will also lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention until President Donald Trump appoints a permanent director, The New York Times and other news organizations reported Wednesday, citing administration officials. Bhattacharya, an outspoken critic of the CDC’s Covid-19 response, will replace acting CDC chief Jim O’Neill.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired CDC Director Susan Monarez in August amid a dispute over his proposed changes to vaccine policy.

Who said what

Kennedy has “managed to install leaders he trusts,” including Bhattacharya, in other HHS agencies, but “the CDC has been an outlier,” the Times said. Temporarily expanding Bhattacharya’s portfolio is part of a broader HHS “leadership shake-up” by Kennedy and the White House, “partly in anticipation of health policy being front and center in this year’s midterm elections.”

The Trump administration “seeks to stabilize a department rattled by internal fights and controversial messages,” especially on vaccines, before voters head to the polls, said The Washington Post. As CDC boss, Bhattacharya will “oversee the agency’s vaccine recommendations, which have emerged as a political flash point” as Kennedy, a longtime vaccine opponent, works to “roll them back.” Bhattacharya has said he supports routine childhood immunizations.

What next?

Public health experts, “including former CDC officials, say it will be nearly impossible” for Bhattacharya to run “both the nation’s biomedical research agency and its public health agency,” one of which is headquartered in Maryland and the other in Atlanta, the Times said. Getting a new permanent CDC director confirmed by the Senate would be a “big political lift heading into the midterm elections,” Axios said.