1. United States
2. Ala.
3. Letter

Dear Representative: As your constituent, I urge you to oppose the nomination of Jay Bhattacharya as Director of the National Institutes of Health. I have many grave concerns with him in this role. This is a bipartisan issue. Dr. Bhattacharya, a health economist who has not practiced medicine despite his degree, lacks the knowledge required to lead America’s unparalleled source of medical sciences research. Nor does he have the management expertise needed to oversee NIH’s complex array of agencies and billions in funding. Ultimately, he will stifle advancements in research and progress in the medical sciences because he elevates academic freedom over scientific soundness. His judgment and analyses have been extraordinarily wrong on vital public health matters of this country and the world. He based policy recommendations even in late 2020 on his prediction that US COVID deaths would not reach 50,000, a tiny fraction of the 1.2 million toll to date. For example, he assured Florida residents in mid-2021 that enough had already gotten COVID vaccines -- yet most Florida COVID deaths were still to come. He ignores the millions of Americans developing Long COVID and many more worldwide He has continually deceived the public on important health information by promoting conspiracy theories about vaccines and endorsing ineffective medicines for COVID-19. His promotion of pseudoscience makes him inappropriate for this crucial role and would undermine NIH’s decades of leadership and breakthroughs in health research. I respectfully ask you to oppose his nomination as Director of NIH. We need someone who will advance science and medicine with science-based approaches and not an economist who leads campaigns to deceive the public with false information. Thank you for your consideration.