Ricketts Introduces Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, President Trump’s Nominee to Lead NIH

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Pete Ricketts (R-NE) introduced Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, President Trump’s nominee to lead the National Institutes of Health (NIH), in front of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee. Senator Ricketts said the following of Dr. Bhattacharya:

“He showed great intellectual honesty and courage because he offered alternative suggestions about how to handle the pandemic…” Sen. Ricketts said. “Dr. Bhattacharya helped give me a perspective and certainly demonstrated that he was thinking not just about how does the virus impact people but if we do lockdowns and so forth how will that impact people’s health? And there were other impacts from doing those shutdowns.” 

When he was Governor, Ricketts consulted with Dr. Bhattacharya to develop Nebraska’s highly successful response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Politico ranked Nebraska as having the best COVID response of any state considering health, economic, social, and educational factors.