(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) Unsurprisingly, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., will not be decorating retiring COVID czar Anthony Fauci with laurels when he steps down from his post at the National Institutes for Health in December.
Sen. Paul clashed with Fauci during a hearing Wednesday for the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee—ostensibly to discuss the monkeypox virus.
Paul, a medical doctor by trade, has confronted Fauci repeatedly over lies he spread during the coronavirus pandemic—including his own role in helping to fund controversial gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
This time, he warned that investigators would be sure to look into royalties that Fauci recieved from pharmaceutical companies during the pandemic.
“We’ve been asking you, and you’ve refused to answer, whether the vaccine committees get royalties from the pharmaceutical companies,” Paul told Fauci.
“I asked you last time, and what was your response? ‘We don’t have to tell you,’” Paul continued. “We’ve demanded them through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), and what have you said? ‘We are not going to tell you.’”
SEN. PAUL TO DR. FAUCI: "When we get in charge, we're gonna change the rules and you will have to divulge where you get your royalties from, from what companies and if anybody on the committee has a conflict of interest, we are going to learn about it. I promise you that." pic.twitter.com/7r2Q89pnQR
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) September 14, 2022
Paul said the conflicts of interest would expose Fauci as a fraud when Republicans regain control of Congress, as many expect will be the case following November’s midterm elections.
“But I’ll tell you this, when we get in charge, we’re gonna change the rules and you will have to divulge where you get your royalties from, from what companies—and if anybody on the committee has a conflict of interest, we are going to learn about it,” Paul said. “I promise you that.”
In response, Fauci claimed that other departments in the federal government are in charge of vaccine approval, and so if he did profit from Big Pharma connections, it would not have been a direct use of power.
“They’re not my committees,” Fauci said. “They’re the VRBPAC [Vaccine and Related Biological Products Advisory Committees] for the FDA and the ACIP [Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices] for the CDC. So I don’t have any idea what goes on…”
In any case, Anthony “the Science” Fauci said in a previous discussion with Paul that he is not legally required to divulge financial information.
“First of all, according to the regulations, people who receive royalties are not required to divulge them, even on their financial statement, according to the Bayh–Dole Act,” Fauci said.
