Stanford physician and economist Jay Bhattacharya, who former National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins labeled as a “fringe” expert for co-authoring an open letter opposing pandemic lockdowns in October 2020, is now a strong contender to lead the agency. 

Bhattacharya’s name is on an internal list of contenders for top government health roles being compiled by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to run the Department of Health and Human Services, according to four sources speaking on the condition of anonymity, reported The Washington Post Saturday.

In their letter known as the Great Barrington Declaration, Bhattacharya and his co-authors, Dr. Martin Kulldorff, a professor of medicine at Harvard University, and Dr. Sunetra Gupta, a professor at Oxford University, called for a “Focused Protection” method of dealing with the pandemic that would “allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection, while better protecting those who are at highest risk.”

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