Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Jay Bhattacharya knows a little something about freedom of speech.
In 2020, troubled by the U.S. public health establishment's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, he penned an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal questioning the efficacy of lockdowns and school closings. He later called the lockdowns "the biggest public health mistake we've ever made."
He was the co-author of The Great Barrington Declaration, a proposal published in October 2020 arguing for an alternative public health approach to COVID-19 through "focused protection" of the people most at risk. The proposal was years ahead of its time, as many researchers agree today that protecting the old and others most at risk of serious illness or death would have been preferable to a general lockdown.
Bhattacharya was essentially canceled because these views went against the conventional wisdom handed down by the public health establishment.
He later said that he was subject to death threats and "racist attacks" because of his views. He also alleged that "Big tech outlets like Facebook and Google" suppressed "our ideas, falsely deeming them 'misinformation.'"
This much was proved with the release of the "Twitter Files" that showed Big Tech's censors worked hand in glove with the Biden administration to stifle any dissent about COVID-19, its origins, or the government's response.
He fought against a California law that could turn "doctors into agents of state public health rather than advocates for their patients" by disciplining physicians who advocated for anything but the "official" COVID-19 treatments.
After facing censorship for opposing the public health establishment, Bhattacharya arrived as director of NIH with a good idea on how to restore trust and free inquiry to the Institute.
He said that free expression was erased during the pandemic.
“The First Amendment still doesn’t apply in practice,” he said. “Free speech rights exist right now only because the administration has chosen to allow them, not because the First Amendment is protecting us.”
Indeed, if the pandemic taught us anything, it is that the government has the power to run roughshod over the First Amendment by pressuring social media companies to suppress dissenting views on COVID-19. It helped immensely that the social media companies were run by like-minded owners who agreed that dissenting views needed to be stricken from the public square.
The Great Barrington Declaration triggered a massive backlash against Bhattacharya.
The declaration, signed by nearly one million people worldwide, argued that older people should have been shielded while schools and workplaces stayed open. What seemed obvious to him, Bhattacharya recalled, was treated as dangerous heresy. He said that soon after publication, Google delisted the document, hostile media coverage branded it “fringe”, and senior health officials including Francis Collins and Anthony Fauci privately plotted a “devastating takedown”. “The whole thing was just surreal,” he said. “The idea was that the scientific community wanted to tell you that there was no debate — it was only fringe figures who believed something as outrageous as protecting older people.”
The Twitter files themselves were largely censored by the mainstream media, despite their frightening implications. The U.S. government, charged by the Constitution with protecting our rights, was complicit in undermining arguably the most important right of all: freedom of expression.
Bhattacharya is taking steps to make sure that scientists and researchers at NIH have full First Amendment protections.
I’m proud to announce that @NIH is adopting a new framework to strengthen our existing policies to ensure every NIH scientist can publish, present & engage freely—without fear of interference or retaliation.
— Jay Bhattacharya, MD, PhD (@NIHDirector_Jay) September 2, 2025
Read more in my statement ➡️ https://t.co/0qz2K65PmY pic.twitter.com/NNrBpamrPL
Immediately, scientists and researchers from around the country praised Bhattacharya's announcement.
“A clear reminder: science works best when scientists are free to explore!” epidemiologist Taulant Muka wrote on X.
A scientist at UC San Francisco, Dr. Monica Gandhi, specifically praised the NIH director for prioritizing research to end HIV in the framework, seemingly implying that past leaders have not been as keen on finding a solution to the epidemic.
Gandhi wrote on X that “we can do this if we try & the end can be in sight.”
Bhattacharya personally knows the consequences of limiting dissenting scientific research.
“When you take a position that is at odds with the scientific clerisy, your life becomes a living hell,” Bhattacharya said. “You face a deeply hostile work environment.”
After the Great Barrington Declaration, he felt that academic freedom was a dead letter. Once installed as the director of NIH, he vowed to try and revive it.
“To ensure our scientists remain at the forefront of discovery, NIH is committed to fostering an environment where questioning the prevailing scientific norms is not just accepted, but expected. The new framework reinforces that scientific inquiry should be subject to rigorous debate and open discourse,” he stated Friday.
Scientific apostates have rarely had an easy life. It used to be the case that much of the time, their genius was only recognized after their deaths.
Thank goodness, Bhattacharya won't have to wait that long.
