The New York Post recently published an opinion piece in support of Dr. Jay Bhattacharya – billed as having “battled for COVID common sense over media and government censors” – receiving a “top award” and hitting out at those who have criticized the Stanford University health economist for his spread of misinformation, including Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL), Los Angeles Times journalist Michael Hiltzik, and physician and vaccine expert Dr. Peter Hotez.

Bhattacharya rose to political prominence by co-authoring the never viable pro-business, anti-lockdown Great Barrington Declaration and pushing the “dangerous and discredited herd immunity via mass infection” pandemic strategy in the Trump White House.

Right-wing darling

Since then, and despite his frequent cries of censorship, he’s enjoyed a large platform: as a regular guest on right-wing media, as a majority witness for the GOP’s House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic (HSSCP), as part of right-wing legal action regarding the pandemic (including a failed censorship case), and as an advisor to anti-vax Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL). Bhattacharya also scored a prize earlier this year from the right-wing power player The Bradley Foundation, which came with a $250,000 award. (He claims to have given this money to charity.)

Revisionist history, dystopian future

The American Academy of Sciences and Letters (not to be confused with the reputable Academy of Arts and Sciences) that just bestowed Bhattacharya with their Robert J. Zimmer Medal for Intellectual Freedom was formed last year, with “​​hopes to reform academia from within and from the outside.”

This is very much on brand with the anti-establishment circles in which Bhattacharya has been running. And the award is very much in line with the revisionist history of Trump’s pandemic leadership failure that Bhattacharya has been helping to write via the HSSCP and recent pandemic policy conferences. This includes his own event at Stanford last month titled “Pandemic Policy: Planning the Future, Assessing the Past,” which was funded by a charity with which Bharracharya is involved, and which received strong criticism from Hiltzik and Hotez – among many others – for its platforming of discredited public health voices.

Academy for misinformation and repression

In addition to his post at the Hoover Institution on Stanford’s campus, created as a beachhead for conservatism in academia, Bhattacharya is a founding fellow of the conservative and politically active Hillsdale College’s Academy for Science and Freedom, as are fellow herd immunity-pushing pandemic contrarians Dr. Scott Atlas and Dr. Martin Kulldorff. In June, Bhattacharya and Atlas spoke at an event at the New College of Florida titled “Reversing the Ideological Capture of Universities and Institutions.” New College is a public liberal arts school which has been overhauled by Desantis’s state government to become the “Hillsdale of the South.” Hillsdale is a sponsor of the Heritage Foundation’s extreme Project 2025 plan for a second Trump administration, which is decidedly anti-public health.

As ProPublica reported last year, Bhattacharya appeared in a fundraising video for Leonard Leo’s new venture The Teneo Network, which aims to make a Federalist Society beyond the legal system to “crush liberal dominance” in America. Legal activist Leo is the architect of the far-right takeover of the Supreme Court which led to the fall of Roe v. Wade and his Teneo group is a sponsor of Project 2025. Bhattacharya can be seen in the promotional video speaking at a Teneo retreat. Also featured in the video are Trump’s current running mate Sen. JD Vance (R-OH), DeSantis, and Trump sycophant Vivek Ramaswamy who has previously expressed a desire to gut the Food and Drug Administration. 

Newspeak from the Ministry of Truth

Bhattacharya has the ability to help the Right infiltrate scientific institutions as well as academia. Anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who Trump has promised the role of overhauling scientific agencies under the umbrella of the Health and Human Services in a second administration, recently posted a video to Twitter/X about his “Make America Healthy Again” effort wherein a need for Bhattacharya at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is discussed.

Project 2025 codifies misinformation about harms from COVID-19 lockdowns – a favorite talking point of Bhattacharya’s following the rebuking of his Great Barrington Declaration by the mainstream scientific community – and aims to kneecap the CDC’s ability to make recommendations for public health, including regarding vaccines. Several former CDC directors have spoken out about the serious harm this attack on the agency could cause for the nation. 

COVID-19 minimizing surgeon Dr. Marty Makary, who Bhattacharya hosted at his Stanford event last month and who testified alongside Bhattacharya to the HSSCP last year, has been floated for a position in the “MAHA” overhaul of federal scientific institutions. As has anti-vax Florida state surgeon general Dr. Joseph Ladapo, who pushed the herd immunity strategy in the Trump White House with Bhattacharya. So Bhattacharya’s inclusion in the Trump 2.0 wrecking ball government is certainly not out of the question. After all, he – and his “censorship” – is highlighted in Heritage’s “Road Map for COVID-19 Congressional Oversight” that the HSSCP appears to be following.

Purveyors of preventable death

Kennedy’s potential position as a demolisher of federal scientific institutions has rightfully caused worry amongst the public health community – and even within the GOP. His and Trump’s ability to place into positions of power individuals who have acted against public health to disastrous ends during the pandemic should be of grave concern for all.

In 2022, Trump’s former White House coronavirus response coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx testified to the then Democrat-led House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis (HSSCC) that the work of Bhattacharya et al pushing the pro-business, anti-lockdown pandemic strategy behind her back cost roughly 130,000 lives before the vaccines were available. MAGA’s anti-vaccine efforts would contribute to over 200,000 preventable COVID-19 deaths, and states like Florida fared particularly poorly with poor public health leadership. 

On his “Science from the Fringes” podcast, Bhattacharya claimed HSSCC member Krishnamoorthi’s calling him out for his spread of dangerous misinformation (an “attack”) a low point of his career that “left a lasting impact” – to say nothing of the lives lost as a result of the Trump administration’s mishandling of the pandemic outbreak and his own role in that tragic failure.

Vote

We know the damage contrarian doctors acting on behalf of political and big money interests can do to public health given our very recent history. If allowed, they could cause significantly more harm. This does not deserve awards and appointments; it deserves alarm.

Vote accordingly.