Veni Vidi Fauci

White coat supremacy still prevails

The federal Energy Department has now concluded that the COVID-19 pandemic began with a leak from a laboratory in China. In a similar style, FBI Director Christopher Wray explains, “The FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan. Here you are talking about a potential leak from a Chinese government-controlled lab.” And since the first case of COVID in the U.S. in January 2020, added Wray, China has tried to “thwart and obfuscate” investigations into the origin of the pandemic. 

That was also true of White House advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci, who maintained that the COVID virus arose naturally in the wild, a matter of speculation, not science. Reporters wondered what Dr. Fauci thought of the new revelations, but he declined to comment. Given Fauci’s record, that comes as no surprise.

Anthony Fauci earned a medical degree in 1966, but in 1968 hired on with the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Dr. Fauci’s bio showed no advanced degrees in biochemistry or molecular biology, but in 1984, the NIH made him director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). Nobel laureate Kary Mullis, inventor of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), believed Fauci was unqualified, but NIH duly kept him in the post. 

Dr. Fauci was fully aware of the dangers posed by gain-of-function research, which makes viruses more lethal and transmissible. Even so, Dr. Fauci bankrolled gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), a laboratory controlled by China’s Communist government, off limits to oversight and not accountable to American taxpayers. The WIV also received shipments of deadly pathogens courtesy of Xiangguo Qiu, the former program director at Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory (NML). In 2017-18, Dr. Qiu made at least five trips to the WIV.

In early 2020, Dr. Fauci opposed President Trump’s ban on flights from China and backed draconian lockdowns on workplaces and schools. When the medical scientists of the Great Barrington Declaration advanced a more sensible policy, Dr. Fauci teamed with NIH director Francis Collins to brand them “fringe epidemiologists,” even though most, if not all, were more qualified than the two government bosses. 

Dr. Fauci never treated a single COVID patient and showed little respect for informed consent and the principle of “first do no harm.” The NIAID boss promoted mandatory injections, even for children, with vaccines that failed to prevent infection and transmission of COVID-19. The fully vaccinated and boosted Dr. Fauci confirmed that reality when he tested positive for COVID; so did fully vaccinated and boosted Joe Biden, who charged, “this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated.”

When challenged by members of Congress, Dr. Fauci claimed, “I represent science,” and that his critics were attacking science. That should have prompted a resignation, but Dr. Fauci remained on the job after more than 50 years in government. In all that time, the NIAID boss never once had to face the voters, and he has never been fully called to account. 

After his retirement, the FBI did not raid Dr. Fauci’s house searching for documents about his funding of the WIV in China. When the FBI and Department of Energy confirmed the laboratory origin of COVID-19, Dr. Fauci had nothing to say. The nation’s leading white coat supremacist thus emerges victorious. That is bad news for embattled Americans, who need a strategy moving forward.

Congress should scale back NIH funding by at least 25 percent. NIH and NIAID directors should be limited to a single four-year term and subject to dismissal for cause. No single NIH or NIAID official should control public health policy and funding for medical research, as was the case with Dr. Fauci, who controlled a budget of more than $6 billion

All NIH and NIAID grant proposals should be immediately posted on the internet in downloadable form. These and other reforms will help the people monitor how their tax dollars are spent and keep tabs on government actions that directly affect their health and welfare. Never again should someone like Dr. Anthony Fauci hold such power over the people. 

K. Lloyd Billingsley is a Policy Fellow at the Independent Institute and a columnist at American Greatness.
Beacon Posts by K. Lloyd Billingsley | Full Biography and Publications
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