A guest essay at Disinformation Chronicle, written by an anonymous infectious disease researcher at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) reveals that the agency was a tightly controlled fifedom where Anthony Fauci behaved “like a medieval Italian Signoria, where his every word was law, his every whim obeyed.”
Although the author initially admired Fauci for his strong leadership, that view soured after watching how Fauci handled the origins of COVID-19 and research funding.
Several incidents caused me to change my view beginning in March 2020 when a group of renowned virologists published a paper in Nature Medicine that falsely concluded a lab accident could not have started the COVID pandemic.
The author notes a fear of speaking out publicly against the paper, which was widely accepted by the media. Dissenters feared a career-ending backlash in the toxic NIH environment Fauci allowed to flourish.
At the time, people were being called “conspiracy theorists” for even asking if the virus could have had a lab origin. There was a real fear of saying what you thought—shame, humiliation—and I was worried about getting fired. I believed the entire virology and the NIH-funded scientific communities would have banded together to discredit me if I said anything, and my career would have been over. Dr. Fauci was the most powerful man in the scientific community at that time and his word was undisputed.
The author was further dismayed when Fauci denied funding gain-of-function research in Wuhan during 2021 congressional hearings, despite evidence suggesting otherwise.
A year later, I watched in disbelief as Dr. Fauci testified before Congress where he strongly denied allegations about dangerous virus research he was funding at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. I realized that the Fauci-led NIAID had participated in a classic Washington ploy: satisfy your critics by pretending to regulate activity that can harm the public, while actually letting your friends do whatever they want. In this case, I’m talking about gain-of-function virus studies, research that should end tomorrow to protect us from future man-made pandemic disasters.
The author also raised concerns about large grants awarded to potentially to maintain loyalty and deflect lab-leak scrutiny.
Instead of pausing to investigate whether a lab leak had occurred, Fauci awarded Daszak a new multi-million-dollar CREID grant dedicated to hunting for novel viruses in bats—not just in Chinese caves, but across Southeast Asia and parts of Africa. From 2020 to the present, Daszak and EcoHealth Alliance received $4,474,707 for his CREID grant plus another $3,353,628 for similar virus hunting grants.
At the same time, NIAID also awarded the authors of the Proximal Origin paper—Scripp’s Andersen and Tulane’s Garry—large CREID grants which have cost American taxpayers $11,322,650. By handing out awards to political allies, Don Fauci maintained a web of allegiances.
The author concludes by calling for an end to gain-of-function research and redirecting funds to safer methods, like computational modeling, to prioritize public safety.
Read the full essay at Disinformation Chronicle here.
It is no wonder Joe Biden gave Fauci a preemptive pardon.
The post NIH Insider on Anthony Fauci: ‘I admired Fauci in his earlier career, but I can’t say that anymore’ Calls for End of Dangerous Virus Studies appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.