Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, an esteemed epidemiologist and professor of health policy at Stanford University, refused to accept the premise advanced early in the pandemic by medical establishmentarians and lawmakers that lockdowns, vaccine mandates, masking for kids, and other ruinous COVID-19 policies were the best ways to prevent infection and get back to normal.

Although he and other principals behind the Great Barrington Declaration were ultimately vindicated, at the time, he faced incredible abuse. President Joe Biden's former chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci and former National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins conspired to issue a "quick and devastating takedown" of Bhattacharya's criticism while many of the professor's peers personally attacked him. Adding injury to insult, Bhattacharya was censored online.

This prime target for suppression by the current administration is now the nominee to serve as director of the next administration's National Institutes of Health.

'The hammer of justice is coming.'

"I am thrilled to nominate Jay Bhattacharya, MD, PhD, to serve as Director of the National Institutes of Health," President-elect Donald Trump announced Tuesday evening. "Dr. Bhattacharya will work in cooperation with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to direct the Nation's Medical Research, and to make important discoveries that will improve health, and save lives."

Dr. Bhattacharya said that he was "honored and humbled" by the nomination and vowed to "reform American scientific institutions so that they are worthy of trust again and will deploy the fruits of excellent science to make America healthy again!"

Trump's selection was widely celebrated, especially by those critical of Democratic censorship as well as the scientific establishment's deadly and credibility-destroying hostility to alternative viewpoints.

"I'm so grateful to President Trump for this spectacular appointment," tweeted Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump's nominee to run the Department of Health and Human Services. "Dr. Jay Bhattacharya is the ideal leader to restore NIH as the international template for gold-standard science and evidence-based medicine."

Blaze News editor in chief Matthew J. Peterson wrote, "This is what winning looks like right here. @Dr.JBhattacharya in this role is right and just. The hammer of justice is coming. The era of blackpilling is over. We live in a new era — a new @frontier_mag_. Pick up your shield and sword and get ready to rumble."

'It will be a major step forward to have an NIH Director who will fight science fraud and repudiate science fraudsters.'

Matt Kibbe, the BlazeTV host of "Kibbe on Liberty" and "The Coverup," which recently featured Bhattacharya, stated, "Jay Bhattacharya was deemed a 'fringe epidemiologist' by former NIH Director Francis Collins, who demonized him for asking obvious questions about the government's authoritarian response to Covid. Now, Jay will take the helm at NIH, and clean house of all those who corrupted public health and did so much damage to Americans during the pandemic. Karma is a b****."

Molecular biologist Dr. Richard H. Ebright of Rutgers University tweeted, "It will be a major step forward to have an NIH Director who will fight science fraud and repudiate science fraudsters. Rather than an NIH Director — like former NIH Director Francis Collins — who prompted science fraud and rewarded science fraudsters."

Earlier this year, Bhattacharya joined Ebright and other scientists in seeking accountability from those scientific journals that happily published "unsound scientific papers" by Fauci, disgraced EcoHealth Alliance boss Peter Daszak, and elements of their inner circle that downplayed the likely lab-leak origins of COVID-19 during the pandemic.

BlazeTV host Steve Deace, responding to the fact that Bhattacharya is poised to take over the job of a man who recently sought to destroy his reputation, wrote, "Do not be deceived. God will not be mocked. A man will always reap what he sows."

Bhattacharya co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration, which suggested that geriatrics and other higher-risk groups should engage in shielding, whereas healthy individuals should "immediately be allowed to resume life as normal." Healthy individuals, it suggested, would be better off catching the virus and developing natural immunity. This greatly angered elements of the medical establishment who preferred coercive medicine, blanket lockdowns, and school closures.

Fauci called the declaration "total nonsense."

Scores of other so-called experts claimed in a response published in the Lancet, the "John Snow Memorandum," that the call for herd immunity and other proposals raised in the declaration were dangerous and unscientific. The memo was signed by thousands of scientists and endorsed by the Federation of American Scientists.

Extra to facing criticism from his peers, Bhattacharya was censored online. Reporting from Elon Musk's "Twitter Files" revealed that under previous management, the platform put the professor on a "Trends Blacklist," ensuring that his tweets would be suppressed, including his suggestion that pandemic lockdowns were harmful to children.

'All were suppressed.'

Bhattacharya was among the individual plaintiffs who joined the states of Missouri and Louisiana in taking legal action against President Joe Biden, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, Anthony Fauci, and various Biden administration officials. The case — Missouri v. Biden,which became Murthy v. Missouri — exposed some of the ways the Democratic administration colluded with social media platforms to suppress dissenting voices and criticism of COVID-19 policies.

U.S. District Judge Terry A. Doughty noted that the Biden administration

used its power to silence the opposition. Opposition to COVID-19 vaccines; opposition to COVID-19 masking and lockdowns; opposition to the lab-leak theory of COVID-19; opposition to the validity of the 2020 election; opposition to President Biden's policies; statements that the Hunter Biden laptop story was true; and opposition to policies of the government officials in power.

"All were suppressed," wrote Doughty. "It is quite telling that each example or category of suppressed speech was conservative in nature. This targeted suppression of conservative ideas is a perfect example of viewpoint discrimination of political speech."

While the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately let the Biden administration off the hook, claiming that "the individual nor the state plaintiffs have established Article III standing to seek an injunction against any defendant," the lawsuit helped paved the way for Kennedy v. Biden as well as Dressen, et al. v. Flaherty, et al., a lawsuit filed against the Biden administration by vaccine-injured Americans.

'Make America Healthy Again!'

The ruling also helped emphasize the difference between Biden and Trump.

Bhattacharya noted on X following the court's ruling, "The Supreme Court just ruled in the Murthy v. Missouri case that the Biden Administration can coerce social media companies to censor and shadowban people and posts it doesn't like."

"This now also becomes a key issue in the upcoming election. Where do the presidential candidates stand on social media censorship? We know where Biden stands since his lawyers argue that he has near monarchical power over social media speech," continued Bhattacharya.

The candidate promising to protect free speech and hold censorious tech companies accountable ultimately won the day, putting Bhattacharya in a position where, if confirmed, he is unlikely to again be shut up and shut out.

"Together, Jay and RFK Jr. will restore the NIH to a Gold Standard of Medical Research as they examine the underlying causes of, and solutions to, America's biggest Health challengers, including our Crisis of Chronic Illness and Disease," Trump noted in his announcement. "Together, they will work hard to Make America Healthy Again!"

If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Bhattacharya will oversee the world's top medical research agency, its $48 billion budget, and 27 institutes and centers.

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