by Charles Rixey at The Blaze
The philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer once wrote that truth goes through three stages:
First, it is ridiculed; second, it is violently opposed; and third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
Guess what’s next for us?
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? — Who watches the watchers?
Six months ago, I began my first article on scientific censorship during COVID-19 by introducing Dr. Anthony Fauci as a surprise character who had emerged unexpectedly while I dug through what were then 83,000 FOIA emails, published by US Right-to-Know over the course of the last year: see files related to Ralph Baric, Linda Saif, Rita Colwell, Colorado State/Rocky Mountain National Laboratory and the NCBI; other FOIA releases from Judicial Watch, BuzzFeed, and the Washington Post include NIH funding of the WIV and Dr. Fauci’s emails.
I’ve been trying for quite some time to get people to understand the full scope of the Dr. Fauci “situation,” but it’s clear that segments of our national leadership are preventing an honest and open inquiry into his actions because they fear the backlash or collateral damage that will result from the tarnishing of their sacred cow. It’s time Americans were told the truth: that the grant money sent to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) is merely a footnote in this narrative. After all, Dr. Fauci controls nearly $4 billion of annual grant funding for the NIAID, the institute within the NIH he has directed since 1984. Over 37 years, more than 50,000 research projects have been supported with more than $50 billion (conservatively) of taxpayer funds that have been doled out to them.
It’s reasonable to hold him accountable for the results of his organization’s efforts, but the direct funding received by the WIV for gain-of-function (GOF) research represents only a tiny fraction of Fauci’s involvement in enabling risky research. The 2017 repeal of the GOF ban was decided without the consultation of the Trump administration, even though news coverage during the pandemic blamed him for the decision. Neither Fauci nor his boss, NIH Director Francis Collins, bothered to clarify the record, which looks especially disgusting in the wake of persistent rejections of Sen. Rand Paul’s assertions (with accompanying evidence) that the NIH financially supported such research.
First, do no harm … to Fauci’s legacy
It’s important to plainly state that I’m aware of the intense politicization of virtually every aspect of the pandemic and the pandemic response. Since many readers may not be aware, I’ll point out that my specific motivation for building a COVID-19 website (later moved here to Substack) and speaking to a broader audience about the various facets of the pandemic was to offer unfiltered information to counter the disgusting polarization I observed:…
Continue Reading