The Stanford professor was appointed Tuesday to lead the National Institutes of Health. Bhattacharya has previously made controversial critiques of lockdowns and vaccine mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic.

President-elect Donald Trump nominated Stanford University physician and economist Dr. Jay Bhattacharya to lead the National Institutes of Health on Tuesday, a move that would hand the reigns of the country’s premier medical research agency to a noted critic of COVID-19 lockdown measures and a proponent of “herd immunity

Bhattacharya would be in charge of Trump's bold goals to reform the NIH, which spends billions to fund medical research.