Trump pick for US health agency proposed ‘herd immunity’ during Covid

Choosing Jay Bhattacharya to lead NIH signals return to controversial and scientifically questionable health policies

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Jay Bhattacharya, an unofficial Covid adviser in Donald Trump’s first administration, has been selected as the director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), one of the leading biomedical research institutions in the world.

The choice of Bhattacharya, a Stanford economist whose proposal for widespread Covid-19 infection was backed by the White House, signals a return to controversial and scientifically questionable health policies in the second Trump administration, experts say.