Report: NIH officials took secret payments from outside firms

Amber CoakleyJune 9, 2022

Dr. Anthony Fauci in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

OAN NEWSROOM
UPDATED 1:54 PM PT – Thursday, June 9, 2022

A new report revealed top officials at Dr. Anthony Fauci’s National Institutes of Health (NIH) are receiving millions of dollars in secret royalty checks.

An investigative report by Open the Books, an American nonprofit organization that describes itself as a transparency group devoted to uncovering disclosed government spending, found more than $134 million was paid to 1,600 NIH executives, scientists and researchers by third-party groups. The payments were revealed after a Freedom of Information Act request.

WATCH: OpenTheBooks case study on the top recipient of 3rd-party royalty payments at NIH.

Our pursuit of transparency at NIH continues. Watch now…https://t.co/C61gTnZhqa

— OpenTheBooks (@open_the_books) June 9, 2022

The scheme reportedly involves the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, along with several US Department of Health and Human Services and Pentagon agencies as well as the US Agency for International Development. Republican lawmakers are aware of this report and they are calling for a deeper inquiry.

“The NIH is in the midst of, as you know, awarding grants for research,” said Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.). “Is also in the position of sort of evaluating or giving opinions on drugs that work or don’t work. And the idea that scientist may be benefiting financially from work that they have done at NIH, that creates to me an appearance of a conflict of interest.”

According to the GOP, royalty payments to NIH officials may undermine public trust in the government’s certification of medical drugs.