(Mark Pellin, Headline USA) COVID Czar Anthony Fauci’s days as the Teflon Don of Science might be drawing near an end, coming in the wake of revelations that he reaped rich rewards in secret royalty payments from drug companies.
Fauci, along with former National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins, received 23 and 14 secret payments, respectively, between 2010 and 2020 for being “co-inventors” of various treatments and pharmaceutical products.
Those payments present “an appearance of a conflict of interest,” according to the NIH’s acting director, reported the Epoch Times.
Federal law allows the royalty kickbacks, but they don’t look ethical, conceded Dr. Lawrence Tabak during a House Appropriations Committee subcommittee meeting. Tabak was named NIH acting director when Collins resigned last December.
Fauci, part and parcel of his COVID czar gig, is the longtime head of NIH’s National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases.
While Tabak stopped short of rebuking Fauci, he left the door open and Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Mich., stepped through to launch a few jabs.
“Right now, I think the NIH has a credibility problem and this only feeds into this, and I’m only just learning about this,” Moolenaar said.
“People in my district say, ‘Well, so-and-so has a financial interest,’ or they don’t like ivermectin because they aren’t benefitting from that royalty,” he said.
Tabak countered that while he could “understand that it might seem as a conflict of interest,” he assured that the “NIH doesn’t endorse particular medicines.”
Moolenaar apparently didn’t break into incredulous laughter, but he did point a finger at Fauci, who was also at the meeting.
“Truthfully, I would say you’ve had leaders of NIH saying certain medicines are not good,” Moolenaar said, likely referencing Fauci’s previous dismissals of myriad COVID treatments and curatives like ivermectin.
How much mega-money Fauci, Collins or any other NIH agent of weaponized science received in royalties from Big Pharma might never be fully known, according to Adam Andrzejewski of watchdog group Open the Books, which first reported the $350 million kickback scheme.
The NIH reluctantly disclosed heavily redacted records after being sued in federal court by Open the Books and Judicial Watch, Andrzejewski said.
“NIH is essentially telling you, the taxpayer, to pay up and shut up,” he said. “They have forgotten that they work on behalf of the American people.”
In that regard, Fauci might be one of the worst offenders.
“To this day, Fauci continues to receive NIH-approved perks without a lot of accountability,” Andrzejewski said, noting that last year “Fauci received a $1 million prize from the Dan David Foundation in Israel for ‘speaking truth to power’ during the Trump administration.”
That likely came as no surprise to Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., who called the NIH “a dark money pit.”
“They covered up grants for gain of function research in Wuhan, so it is no surprise that they are now refusing to release critical data regarding allegations of millions in royalty fees paid to in-house scientists like Fauci,” Blackburn said.
