March 31, 2025
MM#400--From Outcast to Director: How Dr. Bhattacharya's Pandemic Stance Was Finally Vindicated
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Dr. Jay Bhattacharya's recent confirmation as NIH Director marks a stunning reversal of fortune for one of the pandemic's most prominent scientific dissidents. With a Senate vote of 53-47 along party lines on March 25th, 2025, this appointment represents nothing less than vindication for a brilliant Stanford professor who dared challenge the orthodoxy of lockdown policies.
Looking back at Scott Atlas's book "A Plague Upon Our House," we're reminded how Bhattacharya stood as one of the few voices of reason during the chaotic early pandemic response.
For those who questioned the wisdom and ethics of pandemic policies that caused immeasurable harm to education, mental health, and economic wellbeing, this moment feels like justice.
What will Bhattacharya's leadership mean for American public health? After years of politicized health guidance and eroded institutional trust, his evidence-based approach offers hope for meaningful reform. The very scientist once dismissed as a "nobody" now holds the power to reshape how we prepare for and respond to future health emergencies. Subscribe to our podcast for continued analysis as this story unfolds, and share your thoughts on this remarkable turn of events.
Key Points from the Episode:
• Senate confirmed Dr. J Bhattacharya as NIH director on March 25th, 2025
• Scott Atlas's book "A Plague Upon Our House" highlighted Bhattacharya as a hero who got COVID right
• The Great Barrington Declaration (Oct 2020) called for focused protection of vulnerable populations
• Biden once dismissed these views on 60 Minutes saying "Nobody thinks Atlas makes any sense"
• Great Barrington Declaration has gained over 900,000 verified signatures since publication
• Trump administration appointments include Kash Patel at FBI and Kevin Hassett at National Economic Council
• Bhattacharya's confirmation represents vindication after years of opposition to his pandemic approach
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Chapters
00:07 - Welcome to Theory to Action
00:30 - Dr. Bhattacharya's Senate Confirmation
01:35 - Great Barrington Declaration History
04:15 - Victory Lap for Focused Protection
08:35 - Trump Administration Key Appointments
11:20 - Closing Thoughts and Hope Ahead
Transcript
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Welcome to the Theory to Action podcast, where we examine the timeless treasures of wisdom from the great books in less time, to help you take action immediately and ultimately to create and lead a flourishing life.
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Now here's your host, david Kaiser.
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Hello, I am David and welcome back to another Mojo Minute.
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Today we're talking all about a total rock star, dr J Bhattacharya, and he had a big moment in Scott Atlas' book A Plague Upon Our House.
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But before we get into that, we're going to take a moment just to celebrate, because last week, on March 25th, the Senate confirmed Dr J Bhattacharya as the new National Institutes of Health director.
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National Institutes of Health director.
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The vote was 53-47 along party lines, and, frankly, that's just massive, because, after everything Dr J has been through, it is a victory, it is a vindication, and I am so pumped up to see where this health policy goes from here.
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Folks, this is a game changer.
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This is what we've been looking forward to, and so we're going to take a quick look back in a book that we've talked about here on this podcast and from this microphone a plague upon our house and how Scott Atlas gives us a front seat to the chaos that was the Trump White House during the COVID days.
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Now, if you haven't read about it, if you haven't read the book, rather, it's all about Scott Atlas fighting tooth and nail against the heavy lockdown approach pushed by Drs Fauci and Birx.
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And where was Dr J Bhattacharya.
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Well, he's not a footnote in the story.
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In fact, atlas treats him as a friend, a good friend and, frankly, a total hero.
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Bhattacharya is a brilliant Stanford professor and a health policy expert who saw the pandemic differently the most, and Atlas leans on him as one of the few scientists in the world who actually got it right back then, and reading about that now just makes this moment in 2025 that much sweeter.
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In fact, one of the standout moments in the book is when Bhattacharya and his colleagues Martin Kildorff from Harvard and Sunitra Gupta from Oxford released the Great Barrington Declaration in October of 2020.
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And for that, that's going to be our first pull quote.
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So let's go to the book.
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Finally.
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On October 4th 2020, martin Kildorf, sunitra Gupta and Jay Bhattacharya three of the most preeminent epidemiologists and medical scientists in the world published the Great Barrington Declaration.
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In it, they called for an increasing the focused protection of high-risk individuals and ending the broad lockdowns.
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That single document will go down as one of the most important publications in the pandemic, as it lent undeniable credibility to focused protection and providing courage to thousands of additional medical scientists and public health leaders to come forward.
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Now, in the book the Plague Upon Our Nation.
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They outline what the Great Barrington Declaration is.
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It's roughly about a page and I'm not going to read it here, but we're going to pick it up.
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After that citation and the long quote quote to only say this from the book A barrage of misinformation and ad hominem attacks came forward.
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None were scientifically sound and the real goal of the misinformation campaign was to discredit all opposing views, which became visible to the entire world and was shown to reach all the way to the top.
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Less than a week before the election on October 28th, I saw an interview with the future president of the United States, Joe Biden, on CBS's 60 Minutes.
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A little side note here we should just call it 60 Minutes of Lies, because I'm not sure they've told the truth in some 30, 40 years of broadcasting.
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Back to the book.
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When directly asked about my ideas on the pandemic, using a focus protection and ending the lockdowns, president Biden said quote Nobody thinks Atlas makes any sense.
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No serious doc in the world.
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Today, as of June 22, 2021, despite extraordinary attempts by the most powerful elites of society to delegitimize all calls to end lockdowns and to nullify all data proving its shameful harms, the Great Barrington Declaration calling for focus protection and end to lockdowns has been co-signed by 14,794 public health and medical scientists and 43,575 medical practitioners at the time of this writing.
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Medical practitioners at the time of this writing.
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With all due respect, mr President, that's a lot of nobodies and in fact, we did a little bit of research on our end.
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Looking this up, as of last week, we have Martin Kildorff saying as of October 4th 2022, he noted over 930,000 signatures, breaking down as 671,000 concerned citizens, 12,511 medical and public health scientists, 37,000 medical practitioners, which sums up to 721,365 verified signatures at this point.
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So there you go, the ex-Mr President, probably the worst president in the 20, well, the last 120 years, frankly, going all the way back to Woodrow Wilson, and it sounds like he's going to take Woodrow Wilson by storm when all the historians are over with him.
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Joe Biden will go down as one of the top 10 worst presidents we've ever had.
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He's competing directly with the Civil War presidents James Buchanan and Andrew Johnson for the worst presidents ever.
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So, getting back to our book of the day, scott Dallas and Jay Bhattacharya, their strategy was focused protection and it was a huge deal at the time.
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They argued for protecting the most vulnerable without resorting to mass lockdowns.
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That was the whole point of the Great Barrington Declaration.
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Atlas was all in for it.
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They used their work as proof that they had world-class backing.
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And now, fast forward.
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We can take a victory lap.
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We can take a victory lap that Dr Jay Bhattacharya is officially the National Institutes of Health Director.
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It's like everything we were fighting for back then is finally getting a shot.
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The Senate's given him the green light and I can't wait to see how he brings his vision and expertise to the table.
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Big things are ahead and I am all for it and, let's not forget, that's what we've been hoping for.
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We went on this podcast early in the Trump transition.
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We said we wanted Kash Patel as FBI director, and now he is.
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We wanted Kevin Hassett back at the National Economic Council and he's there.
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And we wanted, finally, dr Jay Bhattacharya leading NIH, and here we are.
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These were the three big reasons we wanted Trump to succeed in his second term.
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First, kash Patel.
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The FBI has been weaponized beyond all measures against Trump, against so many people.
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So since the moment he came down the golden escalator, this guy has faced elite resistance for over a decade.
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And Kash Patel was the guy early on who discovered the Russian hoax, and we think he's the guy that can go to the FBI and start to clean house.
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Secondly, we wanted Kevin Hassett.
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Secondly, we wanted Kevin Hassett because back when Larry Kudlow held that role as Director of the National Economic Council, the NEC, the Trump economy was just taking off, especially after the 2017 tax cuts.
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We're big fans of supply-side economics here, as you know, because let's be real, it works.
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Supply-side economics works every time it is tried, and a strong economy benefits everyone, and we're thrilled to see Kevin Hassett back at NEC.
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And finally, again, we're going to take a victory lap with Dr Jay Bhattacharya at NIH.
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After the devastating politicization of healthcare during the COVID pandemic, this feels like a vindication and a blessing.
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Bhattacharya can finally start cleaning up the mess that Drs Fauci and Birx left behind.
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Fauci, in particular, is still someone we believe needs to face accountability for the lies he and Birx told, starting in 2020, and continue to double down and triple down.
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But for now, we're over the moon about the new Trump administration.
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Feels like it's a fresh start and we can't see what is next.
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So, to wrap up, this quick Mojo Minute a plague upon our house showed the behind the scenes working between Scott Atlas and Dr J Bhattacharya as Atlas's ultimate intellectual wingman, the guy whose work stood out as a voice of reason during those chaotic and tough times.
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And sure, we didn't win back then in 2020, but now it's March of 2025 and he's locked in with the Senate confirmation and he snagged the NIH gig and that's a happy ending.
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We're going to take a victory lap Again.
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I'm excited to see what he does in NIH and, as always, let's keep fighting the good fight out there.
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Thank you for joining us.
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We hope you enjoyed this Theory to Action podcast.
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Be sure to check out our show page at teammojoacademycom, where we have everything we discussed in this podcast, as well as other great resources.
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Until next time, keep getting your mojo on, thank you.
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