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www.desitalkchicago.com – that’s all you need to know 12 NATIONAL AFFAIRS February 27, 2026 J ay Bhattacharya, a top Trump administration health official and an outspoken critic of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, will lead the CDC on an act- ing basis, according to four people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe personnel moves. Bhattacharya, who will continue his role as director of the National Institutes of Health, replaces Jim O’Neill, who had served as the CDC’s acting director. O’Neill, who had also served as the deputy secretary of the Depart- ment of Health and Human Services, will be nominated to run the National Science Foundation after he declined a potential ambassadorship to the Organization for Eco- nomic Cooperation and Development, two of the people said. The installation of Bhattacharya at the CDC is the lat- est move by theWhite House and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to shake up HHS’s leadership team ahead of the midterms, as the Trump administration seeks to stabilize a department rattled by internal fights and con- troversial messages. The NewYork Times first reported that Bhattacharya would serve as the acting head of CDC, which is charged with protecting Americans from health threats and issues recommendations on vaccines and other public health matters. Trump officials have said they are planning to find a full-time CDC director, a post that requires Senate confirmation. Susan Monarez, who was confirmed as CDC director in July, was ousted less than a month later after clashing with Kennedy over his plans to change vac- cine policies. Bhattacharya, a Stanford University physician and economist, rose to prominence during the pandemic by arguing that the government’s response to the outbreak was too harsh, a stance that put him at odds with public health leaders who said his proposals would imperil the most vulnerable Americans. He co-wrote the Great Barrington Declaration, which was published in October 2020 and called for an end to coronavirus shutdowns. The declaration drew rebukes from government officials – a clash that ultimately boosted his profile and helped draw the support of Kennedy, a fellow critic of the govern- ment’s pandemic response. “The CDC peddled pseudo science in the middle of a pandemic,” Bhattacharya wrote on X in 2024, criticiz- ing agency leaders’ past claim that widespread masking could end the coronavirus outbreak. As CDC’s acting head, Bhattacharya is poised to over- see the agency’s vaccine recommendations, which have emerged as a political flash point as Kennedy has worked to roll them back over the objections of public health leaders. A KFF poll published this month found that 47 percent of U.S. adults now trust CDC for reliable informa- tion on vaccines, down from 85 percent in early 2020. Bhattacharya has said he supports vaccination for childhood diseases. “I think the best way to address the measles epidemic in this country is by vaccinating your children for mea- sles,” Bhattacharya said at a Senate hearing this month. Bhattacharya and other NIH leaders in January also published a commentary in the journal Nature Medicine that criticized the public health response to the pandem- ic led by other agencies. “Many of the recommended policies, including lock- downs, social distancing, school closures, masking, and vaccine mandates, lacked robust confirmatory evidence and remain the subject of debate regarding their overall benefits and unintended consequences,” they wrote. “Where enforced, vaccine mandates contributed to de- creased public confidence in routine voluntary immuni- zations.” -TheWashington Post White House Taps Jay Bhattacharya, CDC Critic, To Lead Agency For Now By Dan Diamond, Lena H. Sun, LaurenWeber, Carolyn Y. Johnson PHOTO:NNABELLE GORDON/FORTHEWASHINGTON POST As NIH director, Bhattacharya has served as one of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s top deputies. New Carnegie Survey Of Indian Americans Examines Shifting Vote Preferences, Growing Political Ambivalence, And Rising Concerns About Discrimination O ne year into President Donald Trump’s sec- ond term, Indian Americans are confronting a convergence of cross-pressures that has recast their position in America’s social and political landscape, a new survey released February 19, 2026, by the Carnegie Endowment says. Till recently, this cohort of some 5.2 million people of Indian origin, which was the highest earning demo- graphic, with rising political status, and expanding social influence, is now facing antagonism from segments of the general population. Community members have even faced the popular racist trope to “go back home”, with commentators observing a notable rise in online hate speech and discrimination against Indian Americans. In addition, some of President Trump’s actions had roiled U.S.-India relations bringing into question the once “defining partnership of the twenty-first century,” the study authors point out. All this despite the fact that there was a “meaningful increase” in the Indian diaspora’s support for Trump in the 2024 presidential election, the Carnegie report notes, though not enough to overturn the community’s long- standing embrace of the Democratic Party. Authors of the report say that “at a moment of un- usual political flux” it was a challenge to understand how Indian Americans are navigating the changes that include debates over identity and belonging in the United States. To address this challenge, the authors conducted the 2026 Indian American Attitudes Survey (IAAS) in partner- ship with the research firmYouGov. The IAAS is a nation- ally representative online survey of 1,000 Indian Ameri- can adults, conducted between November 25, 2025, and January 6, 2026, with an overall margin of error of ±3.6 percent. The survey builds on earlier IAAS waves conducted in 2020 and 2024 and “provides a systematic portrait of Indian Americans’ partisan identities, vote preferences, policy priorities, evaluations of political leaders, and experiences with discrimination,” the authors say. They summarize their principal findings below: 1. Indian Americans offer a largely negative assessment of Trump’s second term. One year into Trump’s second term, large majorities of Indian Americans disap- prove of his job performance, including his handling of the domestic economy, international economic policy, and immigration. Evaluations of Trump’s management of U.S.-India relations are also nega- tive, though many respondents report having no opinion, underscoring the limited salience of foreign policy for electoral decision-making. 2. Indian Americans remain disproportionately Democratic, but their attachment to the party has weakened . Indian Americans continue to identify with the Democratic Party by wide margins, yet the share of Democrats has declined since 2020, while Republican identi- fication has increased modestly over that period. Ideologically, the community clusters most heavily at the center of the ideological spectrum, with moder- ates representing the single largest group. 3. Widespread disapproval of Trump’s policies has not neatly translated to clear gains for Democrats. While a clear ma- jority of Indian Americans supported the Democratic presidential ticket in 2024, Trump made notable gains compared to 2020, particularly among young men. In 2026, support for Trump has softened, but Democratic support has not rebounded commen- surately, signaling rising dissatisfaction with both major parties. 4. Heightened exposure to discrimination is a defining feature of Indian American life. Indian Americans report wide- spread perceptions of bias, frequent encounters with online racism, and marked levels of personal harass- ment or discrimination. However, there has been no significant change in the share of respondents reporting direct, personal experience with discrimi- nation. 5. Discrimination is reshaping behavior but not prompting widespread exit from the United States. While many respondents report preemptively changing how they live, speak, or participate in public life to avoid harassment, most do not plan to leave the country, and a majority still recommend the United States for employment. 6. Reactions to symbolic political events reveal ideological polarization more than identity-based attachment. Indian Americans express substantial enthusiasm for New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, driven primarily by ideological concerns rather than shared ethnic- ity or religion. Conversely, public remarks by Vice President JDVance regarding religion and marriage elicited strong negative reactions linked to con- cerns about religious inclusion, representation, and belonging. By a StaffWriter