Nonprofit Watchdog Uncovers $350 Million in Secret Payments to Fauci, et. al.

[Eupher]

The old adage is, "Follow the money." Yep, there it is - lining the pockets of the government bureaucrats who are already paid ridiculous amounts of money.

Fauci, his ex-boss Collins, and hundreds of "scientists" were paid royalties by those who were awarded grants by Fauci and his thugs. It's 360 degree grifting. You can imagine why.

Emphasis added below. Fauci claims he donated his money to charity. Uh-huh. Wouldn't the appropriate thing to do, Tony, rather than getting your 81-year-old hands on the money to begin with, is to have that money donated directly to whichever charity under your name? That way your stink isn't on that money.

The grifting just goes on and on and on. Right, Tony?  And Collins - you're an f'n snake.

An estimated $350 million in undisclosed royalties were paid to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and hundreds of its scientists, including the agency’s recently departed director, Dr. Francis Collins, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, according to a nonprofit government watchdog.

“We estimate that up to $350 million in royalties from third parties were paid to NIH scientists during the fiscal years between 2010 and 2020,” Open the Books CEO Adam Andrzejewski told reporters in a telephone news conference on May 9.

“We draw that conclusion because, in the first five years, there has been $134 million that we have been able to quantify of top-line numbers that flowed from third-party payers, meaning pharmaceutical companies or other payers, to NIH scientists.”

The first five years, from 2010 to 2014, constitute 40 percent of the total, he said.

“We now know that there are 1,675 scientists that received payments during that period, at least one payment. In fiscal year 2014, for instance, $36 million was paid out and that is on average $21,100 per scientist,” Andrzejewski said.

“We also find that during this period, leadership at NIH was involved in receiving third-party payments. For instance, Francis Collins, the immediate past director of NIH, received 14 payments. Dr. Anthony Fauci received 23 payments and his deputy, Clifford Lane, received eight payments.”

Collins resigned as NIH director in December 2021 after 12 years of leading the world’s largest public health agency. Fauci is the longtime head of NIH’s National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), as well as chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden. Lane is the deputy director of NIAID, under Fauci.

The top five NIH employees measured in terms of the number of royalty payments that they received while on the government payroll, according to a fact sheet published by Open the Books, include Robert Gallo, National Cancer Institute, 271 payments; Ira Pastan, National Cancer Institute, 250 payments; Mikulas Popovic, National Cancer Institute, 191 payments; Flossie Wong-Staal, National Cancer Institute, 190 payments; and Mangalasseril Sarngadharan, National Cancer Institute, 188 payments.

Only Pastan continues to be employed by NIH, according to Open the Books.

“When an NIH employee makes a discovery in their official capacity, the NIH owns the rights to any resulting patent. These patents are then licensed for commercial use to companies that could use them to bring products to market,” the fact sheet reads.

“Employees are listed as inventors on the patents and receive a share of the royalties obtained through any licensing, or ‘technology transfer,’ of their inventions. Essentially, taxpayer money funding NIH research benefits researchers employed by NIH because they are listed as patent inventors and therefore receive royalty payments from licensees.”

An NIH spokesman didn’t respond by press time to a request for comment.

Andrzejewski told reporters that the Associated Press reported extensively on the NIH royalty payments in 2005, including specific details about who got how much from which payers for what work, that the agency is denying to Open the Books in 2022.

“At that time, we knew there were 918 scientists, and each year, they were receiving approximately $9 million, on average with each scientist receiving $9,700. But today, the numbers are a lot larger with the United States still in a declared national health emergency. It’s quite obvious the stakes in health care are a lot larger,” Andrzejewski said.

He said the files Open the Books is receiving—300 pages of line-by-line data—are “heavily redacted.”

“These are not the files the AP received in 2005 where everything was disclosed—the scientist’s name, the name of the third-party payer, the amount of the royalty paid by the payer to the scientist,” Andrzejewski said. “Today, NIH is producing a heavily redacted database; we don’t know the payment amount to the scientist, and we don’t know the name of the third-party payer, all of that is being redacted.”

Federal officials are allowed to redact information from responses to FOIA requests if the release of the data would harm a firm’s commercial privilege.

The undisclosed royalty payments are inherent conflicts of interest, Andrzejewski said.

“We believe there is an unholy conflict of interest inherent at NIH,” he said. “Consider the fact that each year, NIH doles out $32 billion in grants to approximately 56,000 grantees. Now we know that over an 11-year period, there is going to be approximately $350 million flowing the other way from third-party payers, many of which receive NIH grants, and those payments are flowing back to NIH scientists and leadership.”

Fauci and Lane told AP that they agreed there was an appearance of a conflict of interest in getting the royalties, with Fauci saying that he contributed his royalties to charity. Lane didn’t do that, according to Andrzejewski.

The governing ethics financial disclosure form in the past defined the royalty payments as income recipients received from NIH, which meant the recipients weren’t required to list their payments on the form.

But Andrzejewski said NIH has refused to respond to his request for clarification on the disclosure issue.

“If they are not, none of these payments are receiving any scrutiny whatsoever and to the extent that a company making payments to either leadership or scientists, while also receiving grants … then that just on its face is a conflict of interest,” he said.

Open the Books is a Chicago-based nonprofit government watchdog that uses the federal and state freedom of information laws to obtain and then post on the internet trillions of dollars in spending at all levels of government.

The nonprofit filed a federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) suit seeking documentation of all payments by outside firms to NIH and/or current and former NIH employees.

NIH declined to respond to the FOIA, so Open the Books is taking the agency to court, suing it for noncompliance with the FOIA. Open the Books is represented in federal court in the case by another nonprofit government watchdog, Judicial Watch.

Epoch Times

[SVPete]

“We now know that there are 1,675 scientists that received payments during that period, at least one payment. In fiscal year 2014, for instance, $36 million was paid out and that is on average $21,100 per scientist,” Andrzejewski said.

“We also find that during this period, leadership at NIH was involved in receiving third-party payments. For instance, Francis Collins, the immediate past director of NIH, received 14 payments. Dr. Anthony Fauci received 23 payments and his deputy, Clifford Lane, received eight payments.”

Collins resigned as NIH director in December 2021 after 12 years of leading the world’s largest public health agency. Fauci is the longtime head of NIH’s National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), as well as chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden. Lane is the deputy director of NIAID, under Fauci.

The top five NIH employees measured in terms of the number of royalty payments that they received while on the government payroll, according to a fact sheet published by Open the Books, include Robert Gallo, National Cancer Institute, 271 payments; Ira Pastan, National Cancer Institute, 250 payments; Mikulas Popovic, National Cancer Institute, 191 payments; Flossie Wong-Staal, National Cancer Institute, 190 payments; and Mangalasseril Sarngadharan, National Cancer Institute, 188 payments.

1. Ummmmm, OK. People who were key in inventing something that got patented received royalties when the invention was licensed to a company that used the invention. How is this any kind of scandal? As some wise guy said some 3500 years ago, "The laborer is worthy of his hire." This sort of patents-royalties set-up is not unusual.

2. a. The top 5 in number of payments received ~10X the number of payments Fauci and Collins received. Further, since 1,675 scientists received payments in the pertinent time frame, those numbers suggest that Fauci and Collins were not in the top 500 and may not have made the top 1000. So why are Fauci and Collins the headline names? The Bogey-Fauci/Collins Factor?

2. b. Looking at the payments in another way, consider that the pertinent time period was 11 years (2010-2020). That means that Bogey-Fauci received an average of just 2 royalty payments a year, while those in the top 5 received, on average, some 18-26 royalty payments a year.

I get the The Bogey-Fauci/Collins Factor[/b], which Fauci and Collins brought on themselves, but taking into account the full context of this story and ordinary industrial practices, this story is trying to Himalayanize ordinary practices into a scandal. This is not the scandal in which some folks want to believe, and playing shoot-the-messenger won't change that.

[DefiantSix]

1. Ummmmm, OK. People who were key in inventing something that got patented received royalties when the invention was licensed to a company that used the invention. How is this any kind of scandal? As some wise guy said some 3500 years ago, "The laborer is worthy of his hire." This sort of patents-royalties set-up is not unusual.

Except, in my experience in the engineering field, GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES can not own patents to work they've done while in the government's employ.

In the few times I've worked as a government employee (Naval shipyard, mostly) or even merely as a contractor, one condition to my employment has always been that before my job can begin, I had to sign away all rights to anything I might potentially invent while employed there. Even something I thught up "in my off hours" would be snatched up the moment I applied for the patent on it. It becomes property of the US Government.

[SVPete]

Except, in my experience in the engineering field, GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES can not own patents to work they've done while in the government's employ.
...

From the quote of the OP article:

“When an NIH employee makes a discovery in their official capacity, the NIH owns the rights to any resulting patent. These patents are then licensed for commercial use to companies that could use them to bring products to market,” the fact sheet reads.

“Employees are listed as inventors on the patents and receive a share of the royalties obtained through any licensing, or ‘technology transfer,’ of their inventions. Essentially, taxpayer money funding NIH research benefits researchers employed by NIH because they are listed as patent inventors and therefore receive royalty payments from licensees.”

Just as in engineering, the employer, the NIH, owns the patent rights.

[Eupher]

Now we know why Fauci, et. al., are loathe to retire, step down, go be grandpa.

It's far too lucrative for them to do so.

In my mind, the mere suggestion of conflict of interest is enough to be an issue and coolly explains why these particular bureaucrats, and likely many others, cash in.

[Eupher]

In my mind, the mere suggestion of conflict of interest is enough to be an issue and coolly explains why these particular bureaucrats, and likely many others, cash in.

Heh.

Even the current Acting Director of NIH admits Appearance of Conflict of Interest in Secret Royalty Payments to Fauci, Scientists

Of course, one could make the point that Tabak is distancing himself from this garbage, and I'd agree with you. Tabak knows it's BS, it's tainted, and he's covering his ass. He's stating the obvious in order to hold together NIH's "credibility" which, I'd argue, is pretty much in the shitter as long as Fauci has anything to do with NIH or NIAID.

Undisclosed royalty payments estimated at $350 million from pharmaceutical and other firms to Dr. Anthony Fauci and hundreds of National Institutes for Health (NIH) scientists do present “an appearance of a conflict of interest,” according to the agency’s acting director.

Dr. Lawrence Tabak, who took over as NIH Director following the December 2021 resignation of the agency’s long-time leader, Dr. Francis Collins, told a House Appropriations Committee subcommittee that federal law allows the royalty payments but he conceded they don’t look ethical.

Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.) told Tabak that “right now, I think the NIH has a credibility problem and this only feeds into this, and I’m only just learning about this. 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 …

“You may have very sound scientific reasons for recommending a medicine or not, but the idea that people get a financial benefit from certain research that’s been done and grants that were awarded, that is to me the height of the appearance of a conflict of interest.”

In response, Tabak said NIH does not endorse particular medicines, but rather “we support the science that validates whether an invention is or is not efficacious, we don’t say this is good or this is bad … I certainly can understand that it might seem as a conflict of interest.”

Moolenaar seemed taken aback by Tabak’s response and, while pointing to Fauci, who was also testifying, said “truthfully, I would say you’ve had leaders of NIH saying certain medicines are not good.”

Tabak said such statements by NIH are based on clinical trials that are supported by the agency.

Puzzled, Moolenaar then asked Tabak, “but if the agency is awarding who is the beneficiary of the grant, who is doing the trial, and there is somehow finances involved, that there is a financial benefit that could be accrued if someone’s patent or invention is considered validated, do you not see that as a conflict or at least the appearance of a conflict of interest?”

After conceding that there is an appearance of a conflict of interest, Tabak suggested to Moolenaar that “maybe this is the sort of thing that we can work together on so that we can explain to you the firewalls that we do have, because they are substantial and significant.”

Moolenaar’s reference to Fauci was in regard to his telling the Associated Press in a 2005 article that first brought the NIH royalties issues into the headlines that he had donated his royalties to charity.

But the issue faded from the headlines after 2005, and is only now getting renewed attention as a result of revelations first reported on May 9 by The Epoch Times that documents obtained in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by a nonprofit government watchdog show an estimated $350 million in undisclosed royalty payments from pharmaceutical and other private firms to top NIH executives, as well as to hundreds of the agency’s health scientists and researchers.

The $350 million in royalty payments were made between 2010 and 2020, according to Open the Books, the nonprofit that took the NIH to court when it refused to acknowledge the group’s FOIA request for documents.

Collins received 14 payments, Fauci received 23 payments and his deputy, Clifford Lane, received eight payments, according to Open the Books.

Adam Andrzejewski, the founder and president of Open the Books, told The Epoch Times Wednesday that NIH continues to withhold important information about the royalty payments, including the names of particular payers and the specific amounts to individuals at NIH.

“With tens of billions of dollars in grant-making at NIH and tens of millions of royalty dollars from third-party payors flowing back into the agency each year, NIH needs to come clean with the American people and open the books. We need to be able to follow the money,” Andrzejewski said.

“We believe transparency will revolutionize U.S. public policy. There is no better example of this than the third-party (think pharmaceutical companies) payments to NIH scientists. Every single outside payment to a government scientist could be a conflict of interest,” he added.

The Moolenaar-Tabak exchange took place during a hearing on the Biden administration’s 2023 budget request.

Rep. Neal Dunn (R-Fla.), who is also a surgeon, told The Epoch Times that “it’s no secret that the agency needs reform. Their many issues were exacerbated and highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Providing the public with transparent access to how the NIH is spending taxpayer dollars and reaching their decisions is a basic responsibility, and they must be held accountable. Now more than ever, we must commit to reforming our federal health agencies and restoring America’s trust in public health.”

Epoch Times

[Ralph Wiggum]

Well, he IS science after all.

[Eupher]

Well, he IS science after all.

I know you meant that sarcastically, but in a pig's ass. He's nothing but a bureaucratic hack looking for more face time with whatever kind of entity that will entertain him.

Disgusting. Fauci needs to be put out to pasture - permanently.