New York: Indian-origin physician and economist Jay Bhattacharya, is taking over as acting director of the world’s premier medical research organisation, Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Bhattacharya, who now heads the National Institutes of Health (NIH), will simultaneously hold the CDC position, he told NBC News, confirming several earlier news reports.
According to reports, he steps into the CDC, which, like the rest of the federal health establishment, has been enmeshed in controversies under US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr.
CDC director Susan Monarez was fired in August after less than a month on the job. This happened after clashing with Kennedy, a vaccine sceptic. Deputy health secretary Jim O’Neill was appointed the temporary head of the CDC, and Bhattacharya now takes over from him.
Born in Kolkata, Bhattacharya, holds both a medical degree and a PhD in economics. He was a professor at Stanford University’s medical school in California when president Donald Trump got him to lead the NIH.
Bhattacharya first shot to national
prominence during the Covid pandemic by questioning the prevalent orthodoxy of the government health establishment that imposed extended, broad lockdowns to fight the disease, and went head-to-head with Anthony Fauci, who was acclaimed as the architect of the official policy. That is what seems to have caught the attention of Trump and Kennedy.
The Atlanta-based CDC has a USD 9.7 billion budget for its mandate to deal with threats to public health worldwide and in the US.
The CDC has 25 centres and institutes with a network of laboratories, through which it monitors and provides ways of controlling infectious diseases, food-borne pathogens, and environmental health problems, as well as non-infectious health issues like obesity and diabetes.
The organisation is also into occupational safety, health and injury prevention. The NIH, located in the Washington suburb of Bethesda, has 27 institutes and centres and a budget of USD 48 billion for research at its institutions and sponsoring studies at others through grants.
Vinay Prasad, another Indian American doctor, also has a top job in the US government health establishment. He is the director of the Food and Drug Administration’s Centre for Biologics Evaluation and Research, which monitors the safety, purity, and effectiveness of biologics, including vaccines, and gene therapies.
Prasad, who took up the job in May 2025, quit the job on July 29, only to return on August 9 at the request of the FDA leadership.