Experts warn NIH director now leading CDC will push ‘RFK Jr’s agenda’

Jay Bhattacharya, the director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), was named the acting director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Wednesday, making him the fourth leader in a year at the embattled agency in an unprecedented move that further consolidates power among a small group of men at the helm of US health agencies.

He’s been an ineffectual health leader whose attention will be further fractured, and as a close ally to Robert F Kennedy Jr, secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services and a longtime vaccine critic. Bhattacharya may sign off on further changes to the vaccine schedule, observers said.

Bhattacharya will continue serving in his current role as NIH director, where he has overseen dramatic cuts to research and staff. The CDC has similarly slashed grants to states and enacted massive layoffs even as officials under Kennedy have dramatically reshaped policy on routine vaccinations.

Staff say the controversial health economist has had little to do with the daily operations of the NIH.

“He won’t actually run the CDC. Just as he doesn’t actually run NIH,” said Jenna Norton, an NIH program officer speaking in her personal capacity.

Jeremy Berg, former director of National Institute of General Medical Sciences, had a similar response. “Now, rather than largely ignoring the actual operations of one agency, he can largely ignore the actual operations of two,” he said.

Bhattacharya, who made a name opposing measures to prevent Covid-19, has strongly criticized officials who fund research and advise on policy simultaneously.

“Bureaucrats who fund the careers of scientists should play no role whatsoever in setting pandemic policy,” Bhattacharya wrote in a post on Twitter/X in December 2021, saying the “dual role” was a conflict of interest that silenced scientists.

“It is a deep conflict of interest to have scientific funders like Fauci also closely involved with health policy,” he said in a May 2022 post criticizing Anthony Fauci, then the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. He has also taken repeated aim at Francis Collins, a former NIH director.

Mallory Harris, an infectious disease researcher at the University of Maryland who has followed Bhattacharya’s public statements closely, noted that “ironically, since becoming NIH director he has been unusually involved in setting vaccine recommendations already and is now further consolidating his own power by taking on these roles simultaneously.

“It seems the one qualification for this job is rubber-stamping RFK Jr’s agenda. He has already proven himself very capable of doing so.”

The HHS did not respond by press time to the Guardian’s questions about how long Bhattacharya would serve as acting director and whether he would be able to lead two large agencies simultaneously.

NIH staff say Bhattacharya delegates most of his responsibilities to his principal deputy, Matthew Memoli, and spends much of his time on media appearances, earning the moniker “Podcast Jay”.

“My first reaction was: ‘I wonder if Jay will now do twice as many podcasts,’” Norton said. But his appointment as acting director could have lasting consequences, she added. Bhattacharya has been hands-off as NIH’s leader, which “allows the administration to advance their agenda while having a figurehead that appears legitimate, at least on paper”, Norton said. “Bhattacharya’s role for the administration is largely as a propagandist.”

Congress passed a law in 2023 to make the CDC director a Senate-confirmable position. But the only CDC director confirmed by the Senate under Trump, Susan Monarez, was fired from the agency after four weeks last summer after Kennedy put pressure on her to “rubber-stamp” new decisions on vaccines, she said.

Most recently, Jim O’Neill served as acting director of CDC and deputy secretary at HHS before departing the health agencies on Friday; he was named director of the National Science Foundation on Wednesday.

Bhattacharya, too, is acting director, which means the position is temporary. He can serve as “acting director” until 210 days have passed since Monarez left the job.

“After that, he can no longer use the title, but could carry out the nonexclusive duties of the job through delegation,” said Anne Joseph O’Connell, a professor at Stanford Law School.

Bhattacharya was confirmed by the Senate in March 2025 to run the NIH, which means he’s qualified to act as acting director of the agency, unlike one previous official tapped by Kennedy.

Experts are concerned that Bhattacharya, who has been closely aligned with Kennedy’s agenda, will advance new restrictions on vaccination, for instance.

“They needed someone confirmed by the Senate who won’t interfere,” said Dorit Reiss, a professor of law at University of California Law San Francisco.

Berg said: “Under normal circumstances, one would have thought that being NIH director was more than a full-time job, and then being an acting director of CDC would be another full-time job.” But he offered little confidence in Bhattacharya’s ability to manage either.

“I think he’s safely locked up the position of worst NIH director in history. The agency has lost people and is barely functioning,” Berg said.

Although the White House ended up implementing a plan co-proposed by Bhattacharya, which became known as “herd immunity”, in response to the pandemic, Bhattacharya remains focused on perceived failures of the Covid response from years ago.

“He’s absolutely obsessed with Covid and the pandemic response,” Berg said. He expects Bhattacharya to continue “relitigating the CDC’s role in the Covid response” during his tenure. He also regularly criticized former CDC director Rochelle Walensky, saying she “epitomized politicized science”.

When Bhattacharya was first appointed, Berg thought he seemed sincere in his desire to lead the massive agency, which is a leading research organization globally. Berg emailed Bhattacharya what he hoped was helpful advice on keeping grants on track. But he was shocked when the economist responded to an email calling previous grants “ideological boondoggles”, according to emails shared by Berg.

“I moved from thinking: ‘I need to help this poor guy because he’s got a huge amount on his plate,’ to: ‘I don’t think he’s interested in knowing anything,’” Berg said.