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President Donald Trump’s administration has installed Jay Bhattacharya, a prominent critic of the federal government’s coronavirus response, as acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to four people familiar with the personnel move.
Bhattacharya, who will continue serving as director of the National Institutes of Health, replaces Jim O’Neill, who had been leading the CDC in an acting capacity. O’Neill, who also served as deputy secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, is expected to be nominated to lead the National Science Foundation after declining a potential ambassadorship to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, two of the people said.
The appointment marks the latest leadership upheaval at the Department of Health and Human Services under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as the Trump administration seeks to stabilize a department that has been beset by internal disputes and controversy ahead of the midterm elections.
The New York Times first reported that Bhattacharya would serve as the CDC’s acting head. Administration officials have said the White House plans to nominate a permanent CDC director, a position that requires Senate confirmation.
Leadership turmoil at CDC
The move follows the abrupt removal of Susan Monarez, who was confirmed as CDC director in July but ousted less than a month later after clashing with Kennedy over proposed changes to federal vaccine policy, according to people familiar with the matter.
The CDC plays a central role in protecting Americans from public health threats and issues guidance on vaccines, infectious diseases and emergency preparedness — responsibilities that have become increasingly politicized since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Bhattacharya’s appointment places a vocal critic of the agency’s pandemic-era leadership in charge of shaping its next phase.
Pandemic critic elevated
Bhattacharya, a physician and health economist at Stanford University, rose to national prominence during the pandemic for arguing that lockdowns and other public health restrictions were overly harmful and insufficiently supported by evidence.
He was a co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, a document published in October 2020 that called for ending widespread shutdowns and instead focused on protecting those most vulnerable to severe illness. The declaration drew sharp rebukes from public health officials, who warned that the approach could lead to unnecessary deaths.
Those clashes ultimately elevated Bhattacharya’s public profile and helped him forge an alliance with Kennedy, who has also criticized federal agencies’ handling of the pandemic.
“The CDC peddled pseudo science in the middle of a pandemic,” Bhattacharya wrote on X in 2024, condemning agency leaders’ past assertions that widespread masking could end the coronavirus outbreak.
Vaccine policy in focus
As acting CDC director, Bhattacharya is positioned to oversee vaccine recommendations, a flash point as Kennedy has sought to roll back or revise federal guidance over the objections of many public health experts.
Public trust in the CDC has declined sharply. A recent poll by KFF found that just 47% of U.S. adults now trust the CDC to provide reliable information about vaccines, down from 85% in early 2020.
Bhattacharya has said he supports vaccination for childhood diseases, including measles.
“I think the best way to address the measles epidemic in this country is by vaccinating your children for measles,” Bhattacharya said during a Senate hearing this month.
Criticism of pandemic response continues
In January, Bhattacharya and other NIH leaders published a commentary in the journal Nature Medicine criticizing the pandemic response led by other public health agencies.
“Many of the recommended policies, including lockdowns, social distancing, school closures, masking, and vaccine mandates, lacked robust confirmatory evidence and remain the subject of debate regarding their overall benefits and unintended consequences,” they wrote.
The authors also argued that vaccine mandates, where enforced, undermined public confidence in routine immunizations — a claim disputed by many public health researchers.
