Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool

All Episodes

Previous Next

May 11, 2022 - Epoch Times

11:50

Watchdog Uncovers $350 Million in Secret Payments to Fauci, Collins, Others at NIH

Large

Audio Only |

Scroll

Time	Text
	Good evening.
	These right here are Drs.
	Fauci as well as his previous boss, Dr.
	Francis Collins.
	And according to a treasure trove of newly released documents that were uncovered by a non-profit watchdog group, these two doctors, alongside other scientists over at the NIH, they have received an estimated $350 million worth of secret undisclosed royalty payments.
	Let me just repeat that.
	According to a non-profit watchdog group called Open the Books, Dr.
	Fauci, Dr.
	Francis Collins, as well as hundreds of other scientists at the NIH, they have been paid an estimated $350 million worth of undisclosed royalties.
	Here's specifically what the CEO of this particular watchdog group said.
	told reporters during a teleconference, quote, Now,
	it is worth mentioning that the numbers that they were able to get from the government were not as transparent as they used to be, although we will explore that a bit more in detail.
	Regardless, though, according to the data that they were able to acquire, this watchdog group found that during the first five years of this time period, meaning from 2010 to 2014, this period constituted 40% of the total amount, meaning that the remaining 60% of the money that was paid out was between 2015 and 2020.
	Here's specifically what the president of this group said about his findings when the documents came into their possession.
	"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.
	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 the NIH, received 14 payments.
	Dr.
	Anthony Fauci received 23 payments, and his deputy, Clifford Lane, received 8 payments.
	Now, according to a fact sheet that was released by Open the Books, I'll show it up on screen for you, it shows that while some employees of the NIH received just a few dozen payments, like Dr.
	Fauci, who received 23, And Dr.
	Collins, who received 14, well, there are other scientists on the payroll who received much, much more.
	As you can see up on screen for yourself, you'll notice that the top five payment recipients, they received from a low of 188 payments all the way up to 271 separate payments.
	Now, the very next obvious question that you're likely asking is, what exactly are these payments?
	Who's paying them, and what are they for?
	Well, for a very simple explanation, here's how this fact sheet explains it.
	Quote, 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.
	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-funded NIH research benefits researchers employed by the NIH because they are listed as patent inventors and therefore receive royalty payments from licenses.
	Now specifically, what they're referring to here is what's known as the Bayh-Dole Act, Which was a bipartisan piece of legislation passed back in the 1980s.
	Because you see, previously, meaning before the Bayh-Dole Act was signed into law, the way that scientific research was actually funded by the federal government would be that the federal government would give money to a private research institution, and whatever that research institution discovered, well, the government would own the patent to it.
	Now, the theory behind this method was that because the government would own the patent outright, all of the money earned from the patent would go right back to the taxpayers, or at least it would go back to the government agency.
	And so, if the government wanted to either use one of their patents or sell one of their patents, Well, all the proceeds would come back to the agency and, theoretically at least, offset what the taxpayers would have to give in order to make up that agency's budget.
	However, that was only in theory, because back in the 1970s, this was not how it was actually happening in practice.
	What was actually happening was how the government wound up collecting all these different patents, and the vast majority of them were just sitting around, collecting dust, not doing anything they were never used, and they were not making any money for the agency.
	And so that was the impetus for the Bayh-Dole Act to be passed back in December of 1980.
	And with this law in place, the way that it's worked now for the past 42 years is that an institution, like let's say Harvard, Yale or MIT, they get a grant from the government, they use that money to find some kind of innovative piece of preliminary research, They then get a patent for the fruits of that research, and then they license it out to private companies who invest heavily in the hopes of getting one of these drugs out to market and then making money off it in the future.
	The idea here was that this new system would spur innovation.
	But obviously, it is not without controversy.
	For instance, there was a phenomenal article that was published back in the British Medical Journal and dealt with the fact that Dr.
	Fauci was receiving quite a bit of royalty money from his patent on AIDS medication.
	Here's an excerpt from this article.
	Quote, The press agency reported that two leading researchers, Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and his deputy Clifford Lane received payments relating to their development of interlichen 2 as a treatment for HIV and AIDS.
	Dr. Lane told the BMJ that the payment was part of his federal compensation.
	He explained that the government patented the development and shared the payments it received with the inventors.
	Since 1997, he has received about $45,000.
	That's what he says.
	The institutes awarded $36 million in grants for studies to test the treatment.
	Now, just to pause here for a quick moment, you see how it kind of works.
	There's a back and forth.
	The scientists in the NIH, they receive payments directly to themselves, to their bank accounts, but the institution as a whole, the NIH, grants money to that institution to conduct further testing and research.
	They granted them $36 million.
	However, the individual scientists got $45,000 in return.
	The article then continues, quote, Dr.
	Anthony Fauci told the British Medical Journal that as a government employee, he was required by law to put his name on the patent for the development of Interlaken 2 and was also required by law to receive part of the payment the government received for use of the patent.
	And so you see, there are really two ways to look at these patents.
	Because if you're generous and you're only looking at the surface that's the stated objective of that law, then they do serve a positive purpose.
	They spur medical innovation.
	However, there are two very glaring issues.
	The first is the increasing lack of transparency.
	Because you see, during the teleconference, the president of the Watchdog Group opened the books.
	Well, he said that back in 2005, when the Associated Press was reporting extensively on this NIH royalty program, Well, the government gave them access to very specific, very granular data, including which scientists were paid, exactly how much money they were paid, which companies were paying them, and what was the exact patent that they were being paid for.
	And so again, that was back in 2005.
	The data which the government was willing to give was very detailed and very granular.
	However, this year, in 2022, when Open the Books attempted to get this data from the government, well, they were not as generous.
	Here's specifically what the president of Open the Books said on this front.
	Quote, It's quite obvious the stakes in healthcare are a lot larger.
	He then went on to say that the 300 pages of line-by-line data which his organization actually received was heavily redacted.
	Here's specifically what he said, quote, Today, the NIH is producing a heavily redacted database.
	We don't know the amount paid to the scientist, and we don't know the name of the third-party payer.
	All of that is being redacted.
	Now, it is the case that federal officials are legally allowed to redact information from these Freedom of Information Act requests if the release of that information could harm a company's commercial privilege.
	However, according to this watchdog, well, these undisclosed royalty payments, they contain within them an inherent conflict of interest.
	Here's specifically what he said, quote, We believe there is an unholy conflict of interest inherent at the NIH.
	Consider the fact that each year, the 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 the third-party payers, many of which receive the NIH grants, and those payments are flowing back to NIH scientists and leadership.
	Meaning that the individuals within the NIH are receiving fairly large amounts of money from these specific companies and institutions, the same companies and institutions, that in return get billions of grant money from the NIH. And so you can look at this as either a system of great capitalistic scientific development or as kind of a one hand wash as the other government collusion with big pharma.
	And the problem is that if we don't have access to the actual information, well, we don't have enough data to know whether there's any actual conflicts of interest.
	Here's again what the watchdog president said on this front.
	Quote, 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.
	And so in order to resolve this dilemma, what Open the Books did was that they filed a new Freedom of Information Act request for all documentation of all payments of outside firms to either the NIH or to any of their employees.
	However, the NIH declined to respond to this new Freedom of Information Act request, and so now Open the Books is in the process of taking the agency to court in order for them to release all of their data, which quite frankly is more relevant now than ever given the fact that millions of Americans across the entire country had vaccine mandates pushed upon them.
	If you'd like to read more about this $350 million worth of secret payments made to employees over at the NIH, I'll throw the links to this research into the description box below this video for you to check out.
	And all I ask in return is that you take a super quick moment to smash that like button for the YouTube algorithm.
	And also, if you haven't already, smash that subscribe button so that way you can get honest access to all of our news coverage every single weekday right onto your YouTube feed.
	And now let's get into...
	Sir, what's this?
	It's me.
	We use the Secure app, which is the sponsor of today's episode, as well as an awesome email and message service provider that actually cares about your privacy.
	Now listen, it's no big secret that our data is being mined and remined all the time.
	In fact, there was a recent study that was published in the year 2020, which found that 155 million Americans, likely including you and me, have suffered some form of data breach.
	And frankly, that's only what's publicly known.
	However, all those past problems with privacy issues and data mining, well, that can be an issue of the past because moving forward, You can use the Secure app, which both your messages, your emails, and your phone calls can remain private.
	That's because they have their servers and their data centers located in Switzerland instead of in the US or China or Russia.
	And why does that matter?
	Because Switzerland has the strictest data privacy laws in the entire world, and they are not subject to the intrusive laws.
	Cloud app.
	Now what I love the most about the secure app is that they don't collect my data.
	They don't mine my data.
	They don't mine the data and phone numbers of my friends and family.
	Everything is private.
	And best of all, at least in my opinion, this does not work with your big tech email provider just because it is not secure.
	And so check it out.
	You can head on over to secure.com and if you use promo code Roland, you can get 25% off.
	And frankly, their rates are not even that expensive.
	It only starts with $5 for the messenger and $10 for the email and messenger combo.
	And best of all, they offer a seven-day free trial.
	And now, while I was down in Texas about two weeks ago, I got a phenomenal opportunity to sit down and speak with Dr.
	Paul Alexander, who is a former health and human services advisor under President Trump.
	Now, Dr.
	Alexander explained to us how, at least from his perspective, the forces within the federal government, including over at the CDC, were working overtime to undermine the Trump administration's Prior to the 2020 election.
	Now, if you want to check out that interview in its glorious entirety, you can do so over on Epic TV. I'll throw a link to it.
	It'll be right there at the very top of the description box.
	I hope you click on it, and I hope you watch that interview because, frankly, it was very enlightening and very revealing after I had a chance to sit down and speak with him for about 20 or 30 minutes.
	Again, that link will be right there at the very top of the description box.
	And until next time, I'm your host, Roman from the Epic Times.

▲