Jaya Bhattacharya Access

As we wrap up, I ask him the question that haunts every pandemic policy maker: Do you have any regrets?

That is his weakness, and his strength. He is an idealist in a cynical field. He believes that if you give people the truth about risk—that a 7-year-old is safer at a birthday party than a 75-year-old is at a bingo hall—they will make the right choice.

Bhattacharya recalls the day his son came home from school crying. "The kids told him his dad was a killer." jaya bhattacharya

Unlike the armchair epidemiologists, Bhattacharya rolled up his sleeves. He led the charge on the "Stanford antibody study," which suggested the virus was far more widespread—and far less lethal—than models predicted.

Was he right? Partially. Was he politically destroyed? Absolutely. As we wrap up, I ask him the

History will be cruel to one version of Jay Bhattacharya. To his enemies, he is the Pied Piper of preventable death. To his fans, he is the Cassandra who saw the mental health cliff, the learning loss, the second-order catastrophe.

He wants to tear down the "prestige journals" that acted as gatekeepers, force the FDA to lower the bar for generic drugs, and break the "Faucian" model of a single voice dictating national policy. He believes that if you give people the

He was the Stanford doctor who took on the Fauci orthodoxy, predicted the lockdowns would fail, and championed herd immunity. Now, as the NIH looms, does he want to burn the temple or save it?