Trump Appoints CDC Critic as Temporary Agency Head

Jay Bhattacharya has been tapped to run the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—after spending years criticizing its pandemic response.

Bhattacharya will continue his role as the director of National Institutes of Health, as well as lead the CDC on an acting basis, four people familiar with personnel decisions told The Washington Post Wednesday.

Bhattacharya has a history of undermining the CDC’s pandemic guidance. In 2020, the then-NIH head labeled the former Stanford University physician and economist labeled as “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.”

Earlier this month, Bhattacharya put himself at odds with his boss Robert F. Kennedy Jr. when he testified that he’d seen no evidence that vaccines cause autism.

This is a developing story.