Episode

A Plan to Restore Trust in Science From a ‘Fringe Epidemiologist’

Podcast: Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
Published: Jan 29, 2026
Duration seconds: 3862
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Canonical source: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/29/opinion/a-fringe-epidemiologist-on-whats-wrong-with-public-health.html
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Summary

If you want to understand how Robert F. Kennedy Jr. became the face of American public health, you have to go back to the Covid era. Medical authorities spoke with certainty: Trust the science. Don’t listen to skeptics. But a lot of people stopped trusting experts entirely when outsiders got some things right and the establishment got some things wrong. Now those outsiders are in charge, like my guest this week. Dr. Jay Bhattacharya is the director of the National Institutes of Health. I wanted to know: Can an outsider restore trust in public health institutions without undermining trust even more?