Dr. Jay Bhattacharya was confirmed Tuesday night by the Senate in a party-line vote to lead the National Institutes of Health.
The Senate voted 53-47 to confirm Bhattacharya with all Republicans supporting his nomination and every Democrat voting against confirming the Stanford School of Medicine medical professor. Bhattacharya has promised to bring more accountability to the NIH, which oversees tens of billions of dollars in federal grant dollars. 
“The mission of the NIH is to address the health needs the American people have and to expand life expectancy of the American people. And we have not achieved that. It’s flatlined,” Bhattacharya <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/jay-bhattacharya-promises-to-bring-accountability-to-nih-after-covid-failure" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> during his confirmation hearing earlier this month before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee.
Bhattacharya widely rose to prominence during the COVID pandemic, when he was a sharp critic of the government-imposed lockdowns and was one of the first to express concerns about the safety and efficacy of vaccine mandates. During COVID, he was an advisor to Florida, aiding Governor Ron DeSantis in the reopening of the Sunshine State. 
“Science should be an engine for freedom. Knowledge and freedom … it shouldn’t be pushing mandates for vaccines like the COVID vaccines,” Bhattacharya said during his confirmation hearing. “The role of the scientist should not be to say that you can’t send your kid to school for two years.”
In his nomination announcement, President Donald Trump <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-nominates-dr-jay-bhattacharya-to-lead-nih" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> that Bhattacharya would work alongside Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to “Make America Healthy Again” and “restore the NIH to a Gold Standard of Medical Research as they examine the underlying causes of, and solutions to, America’s biggest Health challenges, including our Crisis of Chronic Illness and Disease.”
Bhattacharya also promised during his confirmation hearing that he would support experiments that take different approaches to an issue, saying that much of the established scientific community has failed to provide satisfactory answers. 
On Tuesday, the Senate <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-names-marty-makary-to-lead-food-and-drug-administration" target="_blank" rel="noopener">also voted</a> 56-44 to confirm Dr. Marty Makary to head up the Food and Drug Administration. Democrat Senators Dick Durbin (IL), Maggie Hassan (NH), and Jeanne Shaheen (NH) joined Republicans in voting for Makary. 
When he nominated Makary, Trump said that he would work with RFK Jr. to “properly evaluate harmful chemicals poisoning our Nation’s food supply and drugs and biologics being given to our Nation’s youth, so that we can finally address the Childhood Chronic Disease Epidemic.”

NIH Director Nominee Jayanta Bhattacharya

Senate Confirms COVID Lockdown Opponent Dr. Jay Bhattacharya To Lead NIH

COVID-19

Donald Trump

Jay Bhattacharya

Lockdowns

Science

Senate

Stanford University

Trump Administration

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya promised on Wednesday to bring sunlight to the National Institutes of Health if confirmed as the agency’s director. 
Speaking before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, Bhattacharya rebuked the NIH for its behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic, which he said did great damage to trust in scientists and academic institutions. Bhattacharya, an outspoken critic of the COVID lockdowns, was one of the first to express concerns about the safety and efficacy of vaccine mandates. 
A professor at the Stanford School of Medicine, Bhattacharya promised to bring greater transparency to the American people about the NIH&#8217;s research, which he said had failed in its fundamental mission.
&#8220;The mission of the NIH is to address the health needs the American people have and to expand life expectancy of the American people. And we have not achieved that. It&#8217;s flatlined,&#8221; he said.
This failure, paired with a massive loss in &#8220;trust in the public health establishment&#8221; during COVID, made clear the need for the NIH to reestablish trust with the American people, Bhattacharya said. 
Bhattacharya rose to prominence for his opposition to COVID lockdowns and later his concerns that COVID vaccines posed some health risks, specifically for young men. 
&#8220;Science should be an engine for freedom. Knowledge and freedom &#8230; it shouldn&#8217;t be pushing mandates for vaccines like the COVID vaccines,&#8221; he said. &#8220;The role of the scientist should not be to say that you can&#8217;t send your kid to school for two years.&#8221;
Reflecting on his experience during the COVID pandemic, Bhattacharya said that he was &#8220;tremendously proud&#8221; to advise Florida&#8217;s response to the pandemic, which sent kids back to schools way earlier than California with little to no negative impact.
Bhattacharya condemned the censorship that was pushed by the Biden administration against critics of the vaccine mandates at the time. He said during the pandemic there was a problem of &#8220;censorship and restriction&#8221; of science&#8221; and that the &#8220;root problem was that people who had alternative ideas were suppressed.&#8221;
Bhattacharya said that he himself was the victim of pressure campaigns by the Biden administration and that the Freedom of Information Act requests he filed during the pandemic were returned fully redacted.
&#8220;You can&#8217;t have trust unless you are transparent,&#8221; Bhattacharya said, saying that that Americans should be able to &#8220;see all of the activities of the NIH openly.&#8221;
Other topics discussed during the hearing included proposed cuts to NIH funding of universities and research institutions, as well as vaccines and autism. Moderate Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) pushed Bhattacharya to disavow Trump&#8217;s cap on funding for indirect funding, which he said he would evaluate if confirmed.
Bhattacharya would help allocate tens of billions of dollars in funding if confirmed by the Senate.

NIH Director Nominee Jayanta Bhattacharya Testifies In Senate Hearing

Jay Bhattacharya Promises To Bring Accountability To NIH After COVID Failure

bill Cassidy

COVID-19 Vaccine

Pandemic

spending

House Freedom Caucus COVID Roundtable

Jay Bhattacharya, Trump’s Pick To Lead The NIH, Faces The Senate: Live Updates

Hearings

Just a couple of years ago, if you can believe it, leading scientists from all over the country held a symposium in Washington along with federal officials from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. According to a senior director at the NIH, the point of the symposium was to address a &#8220;defining issue&#8221; of the current era. So the A-team was going to tackle one of the most difficult and pressing matters in the entire field of scientific and medical research.
Hearing that, you might conclude that these scientists were going to discuss, say, a cure for cancer, or a major breakthrough in gene-editing. Or if nothing else, they might talk about the development of the 50th COVID booster or something like that. Surely, at a minimum, they would discuss a topic that had some kind of relevance to the fields of &#8220;health&#8221; or &#8220;science&#8221; or &#8220;technology.&#8221; Those would all seem to be safe assumptions.
And yet — at the risk of spoiling the symposium for you, in case you were hoping to catch a re-run — that didn&#8217;t happen. In fact, that didn&#8217;t even come close to happening. Instead, here&#8217;s what they came up with, at this symposium full of leading medical and scientific experts in Washington. The first speaker in this clip is a professor at Notre Dame, and the second one is from the National Institutes of Health. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="001 LGBTQ+ in STEM" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RgQkhlXLRQk?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
For a second, try to ignore the fact that these people are making up fake complaints about the plight of LGBTQ people in STEM. Pretend they&#8217;re not talking like dime-a-dozen panelists on MSNBC, instead of actual scientists. That&#8217;s actually not the worst part of this footage. The worst part is that, already, you can tell that everyone at this symposium is saying the same thing. There&#8217;s no debate whatsoever. This whole event was an extended struggle session in which only one point of view was allowed. And that point of view is that, for some reason, gay people are being forced out of math classes.
It should go without saying that this is a complete bastardization of everything scientists should be doing. They&#8217;re supposed to be asking questions, using the scientific method and finding evidence to support every single one of their conclusions. This is supposed to come naturally to them. It&#8217;s their job. Instead, they spent the entire event explaining why it&#8217;s important to think the exact same way about this particular issue, even though every sane person knows that their theory makes absolutely no sense. 
For example, as the symposium goes on, one researcher with a nonprofit attempts to articulate why it&#8217;s so important to hold struggle sessions like this. And then a senior official at the National Science Foundation offers his take. Watch:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="002 No Divisions In Science" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/IvZsIFEu5vM?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Every speaker is somehow more unbelievable than the last one. The first guy&#8217;s trying desperately to explain why they&#8217;re holding this symposium at all. And the best he can come up with is, &#8220;When we don&#8217;t ask these questions, we live under the myths that these matters don&#8217;t matter.&#8221; This is the kind of word salad that you have to produce when you know that, in fact, these matters do not matter, and that all of these concerns are completely made-up.
And then the official from the National Science Foundation comes in, and pretty much makes that point as explicitly as he can. He says that, &#8220;We shouldn&#8217;t have to wait on the data,&#8221; because &#8220;we know we&#8217;ve got an issue.&#8221; So like Nike, we should &#8220;just do it.&#8221; In other words, who cares about facts and data when you have a narrative to push? All he knows is that we need DEI and affirmative action in science and medicine. He doesn&#8217;t care if there&#8217;s no reason whatsoever to justify any of this. He just knows it needs to happen.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/mws-ep-1534-member-exclusive" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show</a></h3>
For a very long time, the National Science Foundation — along with the NIH and many other federal agencies — has operated like this. They rake in billions of dollars&#8217; worth of tax revenue with the promise of funding scientific advancements that benefit America. And then they&#8217;ve squandered it to advance a political agenda. To be clear, I&#8217;m not cherry-picking soundbites here, or taking anything out of context. This is something we can quantify. The Senate Commerce Committee just released a report documenting precisely how much money the National Science Foundation, or NSF, has wasted in recent years. Again, this is an agency of the federal government we&#8217;re talking about here.
As The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/27-of-national-science-foundation-grants-went-to-dei-projects-study-finds?topStoryPosition=undefined" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reports</a>: 
<blockquote>The Senate committee found that one in 10 grants awarded [by the National Science Foundation] between January 2021 and April 2024 had to do with oppression, social or environmental justice, gender, or race.</blockquote>
In other words, one in 10 grants have been completely fraudulent. There&#8217;s no reason we should&#8217;ve been funding any of it. But the Biden administration made sure that we did. They kickstarted a lot of this fraudulent spending. The Senate report found that in 2021 — the first year of the Biden administration — less than 1% of grants from the NSF were focused on DEI initiatives. But by 2024, after three years of the Biden administration, more than a quarter of new grants to the NSF pushed &#8220;far-left perspectives.&#8221;
The Daily Wire has a searchable <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/27-of-national-science-foundation-grants-went-to-dei-projects-study-finds?topStoryPosition=undefined" target="_blank" rel="noopener">database</a> of these grants right now on the website. You can page through around 3,000 grants from the National Science Foundation that involve DEI. For example, in 2022, NSF gave Columbia University more than $4 million so that they could study ways to &#8220;decolonize geoscience.&#8221; Meanwhile, a professor at Northwestern received a million dollars in 2023 so that he could put together &#8220;Storywork for Racial Equity in STEM,&#8221; featuring insights from Karl Marx. Over at the University of Pittsburgh, a professor received a million dollars to argue that artificial intelligence should not be neutral because that, “only serves the capitalist, racist, heteronormative, patriarchal, etc society.” Another study funded by the NSF, to the tune of $500,000, determined that the concept of &#8220;peer review&#8221; was racist: “The accepted values and practices in science can serve as roadblocks and barriers to the inclusion and advancement of minoritized scholars.&#8221;
Again, there are thousands of grants like this. We&#8217;re not talking about one or two examples. This was systemic fraud. And the only way to deal with systemic fraud like this is to clean house at the National Science Foundation, which is exactly what the Trump administration is now doing. 
Just because it feels appropriate, I&#8217;ll share some reporting on this development from POLITICO, which is yet another organization that&#8217;s just had its federal funding <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/04/science-funding-agency-layoffs-threat-00202426" target="_blank" rel="noopener">cut dramatically</a>: 
<blockquote>One of the United States’ leading funders of science and engineering research is planning to lay off between a quarter and a half of its staff in the next two months, a top National Science Foundation official said Tuesday. The comments by Assistant Director Susan Margulies came at an all-hands meeting of the NSF’s Engineering Directorate. &#8230; &#8216;A large-scale reduction, in response to the President’s workforce executive orders, is already happening,&#8217; a spokesperson for the Office of Personnel Management said.&#8217;</blockquote>
As significant as this development is, it&#8217;s important to keep in mind that NSF is just one small part of the much larger fraud that&#8217;s been taking place in the government, when it comes to research funding. The National Institutes of Health is a far bigger offender, in terms of financial waste. DOGE just found that the NIH had a contract worth more than $180 million for administrative expenses that didn&#8217;t involve healthcare in any way. That included a contract to build a Tony Fauci exhibit at the NIH museum, for example.
The Trump administration has also found that the NIH spends vast amounts of its research budget on so-called &#8220;indirect costs.&#8221; Last year, roughly $9 billion of the $35 billion that NIH spent on research ultimately went to these &#8220;indirect costs&#8221;, which is a fancy way of saying &#8220;administrative overhead&#8221; for universities and research institutions. For some institutions, these indirect costs amounted to more than 60% of their total grant funding. In other words, in a million-dollar grant to conduct cancer research, more than $600,000 might be going to non-research expenses, like office supplies and things like that. Of course, in almost every case, there&#8217;s no reason for this. There&#8217;s no reason for Harvard or Yale to rake in huge amounts of money for non-scientific purposes, when the grant is supposedly a scientific grant. It&#8217;s a pure grift in every sense. So now the Trump administration is ending this practice. They&#8217;re capping these administrative payouts to around 15% of the total grant.
What you may not know is that this isn&#8217;t the first time Donald Trump has tried to do this. As the New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/10/us/politics/nih-trump-lawsuit-medical-research.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reports</a>: 
<blockquote>In 2017, during Mr. Trump’s first term, a similar proposal would have reduced the overhead payments to 10 percent of the award amount. &#8230; The effort faltered. Congress then acted to &#8216;ward off&#8217; a future effort and passed a budget bill that prohibited changing the fees from the levels that had been negotiated between federal officials and each research institution.</blockquote>
In other words, Trump tried to cut waste at the NIH during his first administration but Congress shut him down. They actually passed an appropriations bill that prevented him from cutting the administrative funding. And now, citing that appropriations law, a new lawsuit is trying to stop Trump from cutting the NIH funding again.
And so far, the plan is working. The other day, a federal judge <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna191529" target="_blank" rel="noopener">halted</a> the NIH cuts with a preliminary injunction. This has been happening constantly, as you may have noticed. Individual federal judges have also blocked the Treasury secretary&#8217;s access to internal files, prevented DOGE&#8217;s buyout offer for federal workers from going through, and attempted to block the closure of USAID. It&#8217;s clear that this will be a theme of the second Trump presidency, as it was in the first one. Judges are going to do everything they can to overturn what voters want, which is for the executive branch to determine how the executive branch operates.
But already there are signs — most notably from J.D. Vance — that the administration recognizes that these judges are breaking the law, and that their rulings may not be respected. In particular, <a href="https://x.com/JDVance/status/1888607143030391287" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Vance wrote</a>: 
<blockquote>If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal. If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that&#8217;s also illegal. Judges aren&#8217;t allowed to control the executive&#8217;s legitimate power.</blockquote>
This is an approach that obviously shouldn&#8217;t be necessary. If we had judges who respected the separation of powers, there wouldn&#8217;t be an issue. But increasingly, unelected judges are telling the executive branch how to spend money and who to employ. That&#8217;s not just unconstitutional, it&#8217;s also unsustainable. There is zero popular political support for continuing these expenditures to corrupt agencies like NSF and the NIH.
That&#8217;s because — between these revelations at the NSF, everything that happened with COVID, and the embrace of gender theory — mainstream science has completely discredited itself. Now when the public celebrates as scientists lose their funding and their jobs, they’ll blame us for being anti-science. But our problem with them is precisely the opposite.  The people we have been paying huge sums of money to — we&#8217;re talking about billions of dollars — have been spending it on political propaganda and social engineering. They&#8217;ve been doing it for decades, on the assumption that no one would ever notice or do anything about it. But now, very abruptly, that has changed. Everyone can see that many of the so-called scientists in the federal government were the ones who were actually &#8220;anti-science.&#8221; And now that they&#8217;re losing their jobs and their infinite supply of taxpayer money, the work of serious people — of actual scientists — can finally begin.

President Trump Meets With Jordan’s King Abdullah

Trump Goes To War Against Fake Science

American Universities

College

Gender

LGBTQ

Mathematics

Matt Walsh

Opinion

President Trump

New Zealand&#8217;s science agency ceased funding all &#8220;social science&#8221; and humanities projects, focusing only on &#8220;core scientific research that helps lift our economic growth and contributes to science with a purpose.&#8221;
The move could serve as a model for the Trump administration&#8217;s reform of the National Institutes of Health. One of government&#8217;s oddities is that smart researchers studying things like cancer prevention genuinely toil for low wages at the NIH, even as the agency funds sociology studies with no conceivable tangible output.
NIH scientists have complained that their grants to travel to conferences have been cut off under the Trump administration, without highlighting that much of their budget has been sucked up by dubious studies that have nothing to do with hard sciences like biology and physics, and instead focus on topics like &#8220;Cuentos de la Vida: Exploring Cultural Heritage through Storytelling&#8221; (<a href="https://reporter.nih.gov/search/lZ4VkpIi80SBW8vClY5wjw/project-details/8001638" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$326,661</a>).
Judith Collins, New Zealand&#8217;s Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology, <a href="https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/marsden-fund-refocused-science-purpose" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced</a> in December that government-funded science should have practical applications that could grow the economy, saying, &#8220;It is important that we support new ideas which lead to developing new technologies and products, boosting economic growth, and enhancing New Zealand&#8217;s quality of life.&#8221;
Last week, Collins <a href="https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/reforms-boost-science-sector-and-economy">announced</a> &#8220;the largest reset of the New Zealand science system in more than 30 years with reforms which will boost the economy and benefit the sector.&#8221; She said the county&#8217;s seven national research institutes would be transformed to focus on &#8220;bio-economy, earth sciences, and health and forensic sciences,&#8221; as well as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and synthetic biology.
“The reforms will maximize the value of the $1.2 billion in government funding that goes into the science sector each year, creating a more dynamic science, innovation and technology system that can respond to priorities and keep pace with technological advances,” she said.
The science agency will produce valuable IP and products that will lead to lucrative careers for scientists in the private sector, she said. A Prime Minister&#8217;s council will ensure &#8220;the taxpayer funding that goes to the sector is spent in the best way possible to grow the economy, because innovation and technology are the future.&#8221;
Social science, or &#8220;soft science,&#8221; includes fields such as psychology and sociology, and often involves exploring left-wing opinions while casting it as a study via the insertion of dubious numbers. The field was disgraced by the so-called &#8220;replication crisis,&#8221; which found that when other scholars reconstructed the studies, they got different results — meaning that they did not find any real law of nature at all, may have falsified their data, and that quality control in the field is extremely low.
Trump has banned diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) from the federal government, including in NIH grants, and many soft-science &#8220;research&#8221; projects involve DEI. But even those that don&#8217;t often have seemingly little utility and function largely as a jobs program for left-wing academics. It would be quicker and more economical to simply stop America&#8217;s science agency from funding projects that aren&#8217;t real science.
Studies have found that social scientists are overwhelmingly liberal, to a far greater degree than biologists, engineers, and health scientists. NIH studies in the soft sciences often read more like left-wing policy papers, such as &#8220;Policy as a Structural Barrier and Facilitator of Latinx Youth Mental Health,&#8221; which cost <a href="https://reporter.nih.gov/search/T-4FqcVfFUOpsTxp9tEx5g/project-details/11015821" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$118,196</a>. After getting taxpayers to fund the studies, left-wing groups then cite them to advance policy, because they disguise opinion as supposedly authoritative &#8220;science.&#8221;
Anyone who looks at NIH&#8217;s grants database will readily see soft science papers, such as:
<ul>
<li>&#8220;Good Bowls: Empowering Communities to Achieve Good Food Access and Health Equity&#8221; <a href="https://reporter.nih.gov/search/T-4FqcVfFUOpsTxp9tEx5g/project-details/10227325" target="_blank" rel="noopener">($162,272)</a></li>
<li>Mobile Internet-based Application to Promote Positive Parenting: Parent-Net <a href="https://reporter.nih.gov/search/6HpBpxmMt0Spb4O78OoXLA/project-details/8906318" target="_blank" rel="noopener">($224,222)</a></li>
<li>Using Twitter to Enhance the Social Support of Hispanic and Black Dementia Caregivers <a href="https://reporter.nih.gov/search/iWkgKaHSFkCC9pTYdEX36A/project-details/10682397" target="_blank" rel="noopener">($559,233)</a></li>
<li>Using Immersive Virtual Reality and Media Literacy to Enhance Adolescents&#8217; Coping Skills in the Face of Traumatic Online Experiences <a href="https://reporter.nih.gov/search/uTX8Oo5CiEag7uwZT2Qhhw/project-details/10695791" target="_blank" rel="noopener">($1,073,590)</a></li>
<li>How Scientists Remember a Major Discovery: History and Memory of DNA structure <a href="https://reporter.nih.gov/search/sGlAo81Rlk-dLUfYwtpQWQ/project-details/7673977" target="_blank" rel="noopener">($50,000)</a></li>
<li>Assessing the effects of hurricane Maria on Opioid Agonist Treatment access among PWID in rural Puerto Rico <a href="https://reporter.nih.gov/search/sGlAo81Rlk-dLUfYwtpQWQ/project-details/9645272" target="_blank" rel="noopener">($259,263)</a></li>
<li>Effects of Social Context, Culture and Minority Status on Depression and Anxiety <a href="https://reporter.nih.gov/search/sGlAo81Rlk-dLUfYwtpQWQ/project-details/8387859" target="_blank" rel="noopener">($613,724)</a></li>
<li>Partner Violence: Roles of Work, Job Stress &amp; Drinking <a href="https://reporter.nih.gov/search/sGlAo81Rlk-dLUfYwtpQWQ/project-details/7599698" target="_blank" rel="noopener">($347,403)</a></li>
<li>The Morality of Caregiving for Demented Older Women <a href="https://reporter.nih.gov/search/sGlAo81Rlk-dLUfYwtpQWQ/project-details/7282981" target="_blank" rel="noopener">($67,727)</a></li>
</ul>
This is part of a Daily Wire series exploring major government programs that could be reformed under the Trump administration.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/why-can-food-stamps-buy-junk-food-how-doge-could-save-billions-and-maha">Why Can Food Stamps Buy Junk Food? How DOGE Could Save Billions And MAHA</a>

Dr. Fauci Testifies In House On COVID Origins

New Zealand Scrapped All ‘Social Science’ Funding. Trump Could Too.

Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)

On February 9, 2010, Michelle Obama unveiled her ambitious initiative to combat childhood obesity through her <a href="https://letsmove.obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/about" target="_blank" rel="noopener">“Let’s Move!”</a> campaign, aiming to empower children and reduce obesity rates. The <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/childhood-obesity-facts/childhood-obesity-facts.html#:~:text=This%20means%20that%20approximately%2014.7,percentile%20for%20age%20and%20sex." target="_blank" rel="noopener">CDC</a> reports that 1 in 5 children in the U.S. suffer from obesity which prompted President Obama to pass the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthy,_Hunger-Free_Kids_Act_of_2010" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010</a>. This law aimed to promote healthier diets with mandated minimum servings of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains while limiting sugar, fat, and sodium. However, the program fell short of its goals and inadvertently exacerbated the problems it sought to address.
The focus of her campaign was not only to ensure that our nation’s children are being fed but also fed healthy food through the aid of the government. This could have only been a good thing until reality proved otherwise.
Within the first few years of this initiative, participation in school lunch programs across the nation fell dramatically. The United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) <a href="https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-15-656.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reports</a> that nationwide participation in the National School Lunch Program declined by 1.4 million.
Children&#8217;s decrease in participation coincided with rising lunch prices aiming to comply with new “health” standards set by the First Lady, which mandated minimum fruit, vegetable, and whole grain servings, as well as set a maximum for sodium, sugar, and fat contents.
This centralization of our children’s diets drastically harmed low-income communities. Many low-income schools faced budget shortfalls, with some completely dropping out of the federal program. Ironically, this initiative reduced access to meals for the very same children the initiative sought to help.
Michelle Obama’s &#8220;one-size-fits-all&#8221; approach to children’s diets, also did not account for dietary preferences or individual school needs. Thus, children were actively choosing not to eat the meals provided for them, calling them “gross” and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/11/24/students-are-blaming-michelle-obama-for-their-gross-school-lunches/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">posting</a> pictures of their so-called nutritious and balanced meals with the hashtag #thanksmichelleobama.
However, Michelle Obama was right: the quality and nutritional value of lunches can change and affect the current rates of childhood obesity. Unfortunately, her approach completely failed to address the real problem at hand: public health giants and their monopoly on the United States agrifood system.
The National Institute of Health (NIH) recently conducted a <a href="https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/childhood-obesity-linked-limited-food-options" target="_blank" rel="noopener">study</a> on the correlation between childhood obesity and low-income areas. Scientists found that adolescents residing in areas of low income had a greater than 50% higher risk of obesity. This statistic is the complete opposite when it comes to a majority of marginalized countries. So why does one of the wealthiest nations on the planet have the most significant rates of obesity?
Low-income communities in the United States are consuming more ultra-processed foods now than ever before. Why? Because processed foods are often cheaper than fresh produce and they are made and marketed for convenience. Mass consumption of ultra-processed foods leads to a higher risk of health dangers and diseases due to high calorific content and low nutritional value.
Students weren&#8217;t getting enough nutrition as it was and Michelle Obama’s school lunch program inadvertently replaced the traditional high-calorie, low-nutritional meals with a different form of processed foods. This change posed a significant issue for low-income students who depended on these meals, as the new options were often unappealing and failed to meet their dietary needs from the start.
This systemic problem is at the heart of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” movement. RFK’s bid is to fix the American agricultural system and that begins with cleaning up public health agencies like the FDA and USDA claiming, “[t]hose agencies have become sock puppets for the industries they’re supposed to regulate” in a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKSBS5v-aOc">recent video</a>. It has become abundantly clear that these agencies are solely operating for monetary gain, not for the people of America.
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In a <a href="https://www.mahanow.org/school-lunches-video" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Fox &amp; Friends interview</a>, RFK was asked what he would do to improve school lunches, and to that, he responded immediately: “I’ll get processed food out of lunches immediately. About half the school lunch program goes to processed food….We’re creating a diabetes problem in our kids, by giving them food that is poison and I’m going to stop that.”
The &#8220;Make America Healthy Again&#8221; pledge to get toxic chemicals out of the food supply addresses the real problem the way Michelle Obama never could. Rather than just treating symptoms of obesity, RFK’s plans to reform America’s agricultural policies, agencies, thereby addressing the systemic failures in our food system.
To truly combat obesity in America, we must prioritize the quality of our food. By addressing systemic failures and reforming the food supply chain, initiatives like RFK Jr.’s offer a more sustainable and realistic path to a healthier nation.
* * *
Dr. Naydeen González-De Jesús is a former college president and former U.S. public diplomacy officer who has championed student success and international collaboration. Her initiatives and contributions to the U.S.-Argentina Education Memorandum during the 2018 G20 Summit, have driven economic mobility, educational advancement, and strengthened bilateral relations.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Daily Wire.

Donald Trump Campaigns In Michigan In Final Days Before Election

RFK Jr. Could Do What Michelle Obama Actually Promised: Healthy Lunches For Low Income Students

Barack Obama

Department of Education

Health

Michelle Obama

Obesity

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Schools

President-elect <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/donald-trump" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Donald Trump</a> announced on Tuesday night that he has nominated Jay Bhattacharya, MD, PhD, to serve as Director of the National Institutes of Health.
&#8220;Dr. Bhattacharya will work in cooperation with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to direct the Nation’s Medical Research, and to make important discoveries that will improve Health, and save lives,&#8221; Trump said in a statement.
Bhattacharya is a professor at the Stanford School of Medicine and focuses on health policy related to infectious diseases, COVID-19, and health economics.
Trump said Bhattacharya and RFK Jr. would &#8220;restore the NIH to a Gold Standard of Medical Research as they examine the underlying causes of, and solutions to, America’s biggest Health challenges, including our Crisis of Chronic Illness and Disease.&#8221;
&#8220;Together, Jay and RFK Jr. will restore the NIH to a Gold Standard of Medical Research as they examine the underlying causes of, and solutions to, America’s biggest Health challenges, including our Crisis of Chronic Illness and Disease. Together, they will work hard to Make America Healthy Again!&#8221;
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Bhattacharya — whose research has been published in economics, statistics, legal, medical, public health, and health policy journals — earned his MD and his PhD in economics from Stanford University.
&#8220;I am honored and humbled by President @realDonaldTrump&#8217;s nomination of me to be the next @NIH director,&#8221; Bhattacharya posted on X. &#8220;We will reform American scientific institutions so that they are worthy of trust again and will deploy the fruits of excellent science to make America healthy again!&#8221;
Elon Musk responded to Bhattacharya: &#8220;Congratulations, this is awesome.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Congratulations, this is awesome 😎
&mdash; Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1861586475906920636?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 27, 2024</a></blockquote>
&#8220;I&#8217;m so grateful to President Trump for this spectacular appointment,&#8221; RFK Jr. said in a statement. &#8220;Dr. Jay Bhattacharya is the ideal leader to restore NIH as the international template for gold-standard science and evidence-based medicine.&#8221;
This is a breaking news story; refresh the page for updates.

Trump Nominates Dr. Jay Bhattacharya To Lead NIH

Executive

Politics

As Joe Biden courted the crucial endorsement of the United Auto Workers, his administration allowed government scientists to join the blue-collar union, ignoring legal concerns.
The Biden administration permitted graduate students doing temporary work for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to unionize, despite initially stating that they were ineligible because they were not even employees. The white-collar academics have since become a highly political and radically-Democratic faction within the auto workers union, which is otherwise losing membership.
The reversal came as Biden “<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/biden-uaws-fain-rocky-road-2024-endorsement-2024-01-24/">systematically courted</a>” the endorsement of UAW honcho Shawn Fain, who had been critical of the president, but came through with the endorsement soon after the NIH move.
The UAW has turned to students and academics, despite having little in common with blue-collar factory workers, to offset the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/uaw-membership-fell-33-2023-370000-workers-2024-03-29/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">hemorrhaging</a> of its membership after the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) allowed teaching assistants at private universities to unionize. More than a <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/10/17/1206359222/uaw-membership-is-down-and-half-of-the-members-aren-t-in-the-auto-business">quarter</a> of “auto workers” union members now <a href="https://www.nihfellowsunited.org/why-uaw/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">actually work in academia</a>.
NLRB decisions don’t apply to the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA), which governs federal employee unions.
In June 2023, graduate student-level research fellows affiliated with NIH petitioned the FLRA to grant permission to hold an election to decide whether some 5,000 early-career scientists could unionize. 
NIH submitted paperwork to FLRA opposing the move, the union organizers said. <a href="https://www.science.org/content/article/nih-researchers-say-agency-seeks-to-block-unionization-effort" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Science</a> reported at the time that the FLRA argued the temporary academics were not actually employees and therefore not eligible under the law to unionize.
“The Agency is of the view that individuals in all categories appointed under the CRTA [Cancer Research Training Award] and IRTA [Intramural Research Training Award] authorities, i.e., all categories other than Clinical Fellows, Research Fellows, and Senior Research Fellows, are not employees under the Statute,” the Biden administration’s document said.
A post-baccalaureate fellow, Emilya Ventriglia, acknowledged that the NIH program was akin to a training program that included “workshops and… different aspects of training us to be scientists. But I do fail to see how that negates us being workers.”
But the NIH dropped its objection days later after consulting with the Department of Health and Human Services.
“NIH has accepted the petition to include all individuals described and stands ready to work … on an Election Agreement,” <a href="https://www.science.org/content/article/nih-withdraws-opposition-unionization-effort">Science</a> reported on August 10, 2023. The agency did not explain why what previously was illegal “under the Statute” was suddenly not, except to say that the reversal came “after additional consultation with HHS.”
In December, FLRA certified the new union, a move that stood to steer millions of dollars in new dues money to UAW, automatically deducted from federal paychecks.
“Some 5,375 early-career NIH researchers have formed a union. The vote to establish the NIH Fellows United-UAW union was certified by the U.S. Federal Labor Relations Authority in December. Of the approximately 1,700 NIH fellows who voted, 97.8% voted in favor of the union,” the new union <a href="https://irp.nih.gov/catalyst/32/1/fellows-vote-to-unionize" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>.
&#8220;This is the first union of its kind in the U.S. federal government. The NIH Fellows United-UAW union will cover, to varying degrees, postbaccalaureate, predoctoral, postdoctoral, research, and clinical fellows working at NIH,&#8221; it added.
The next month, on January 24, the UAW <a href="https://uaw.org/uaw-endorses-joe-biden-for-president-of-the-united-states/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">endorsed</a> Biden.
“This November, we can stand up and elect someone who wants to stand with us and support our cause,” Fain said.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
WHEN THE UNION&#8217;S INSPIRATION THROUGH THE WORKERS&#8217; BLOOD SHALL RUN THERE CAN BE NO POWER GREATER ANYWHERE BENEATH THE SUN YET WHAT FORCE ON EARTH IS WEAKER THAN THE FEEBLE STRENGTH OF ONE BUT THE UNION MAKES US STRONG <a href="https://t.co/zpjpUEc0YQ">pic.twitter.com/zpjpUEc0YQ</a>
— NIH Fellows United-UAW (@nihfellowsunite) <a href="https://twitter.com/nihfellowsunite/status/1674839409366007813?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 30, 2023</a></blockquote>
The emergence of the union came at a cost to efforts to reestablish NIH as a science agency trusted by most Americans, following the politicization associated with Anthony Fauci. Union organizers&#8217; rhetoric has been highly political and uniformly leftist. Its social media promotes Bernie Sanders, and all of the bargaining team uses <a href="https://www.nihfellowsunited.org/bargaining-team/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pronouns after their names</a>.
In one public statement, a green-haired “predoctoral fellow” said the purpose of the union was to advance “a commitment to <a href="https://x.com/nihfellowsunite/status/1702737781745738123" target="_blank" rel="noopener">diversity</a>” and to “amplify the unique voices of NIH fellows of all backgrounds” to build “equitable systems.” 
Nearly 98 percent of eligible employees voted to affiliate with the group.

The new faces of the United Auto Workers union / Photo from UAW

Despite Legal Concerns, Biden Let Government Scientists Join United Auto Workers Before Securing Union’s Endorsement

Joe Biden

Labor Unions

Michigan

The Department of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/health-and-human-services" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Health and Human Services</a> (HHS) under the Biden administration has chosen to defund EcoHealth Alliance, a U.S.-based nonprofit group that has been heavily scrutinized for its collaboration with a lab in Wuhan, China, on bat coronavirus experiments following the start of the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/covid-19" target="_blank" rel="noopener">COVID</a> pandemic that killed millions of people around the world.
An official with HHS <a href="https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Tab-1-EHA-SUSP4D-Notice_5.15.2024_signed.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sent an email</a> to Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, conveying the decision to suspend the group and proposed debarment from federal government procurement and non-procurement programs for a period that usually is up to three years — but could be longer — effective as of May 14.
&#8220;HHS believes there is adequate evidence in the record for this debarment cause and that immediate action is necessary to protect the public interest,&#8221; the notification said.
The GOP-led House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, which released the letter and an HHS action referral <a href="https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Tab-2-EHA-SUSP4D-ARM_05.15.2024_signed.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">memo</a>, announced that the agency cited evidence from its May 1 interim <a href="https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/2024.05.01-SSCP-Report_FINAL.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">staff report</a> looking at evidence surrounding EcoHealth Alliance&#8217;s research activities just before Daszak <a href="https://oversight.house.gov/release/hearing-wrap-up-ecohealth-alliance-should-be-criminally-investigated-formally-debarred/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">gave testimony</a> for the investigation.
&#8220;EcoHealth &amp; Dr. Daszak facilitated gain-of-function research in China without proper oversight &amp; willingly violated multiple requirements of NIH [the National Institutes of Health] grants. They should never again receive a single penny from the U.S. taxpayer,&#8221; the panel <a href="https://twitter.com/COVIDSelect/status/1790762370823847999" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> in a post to X.
Daszak <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/1037517/peter-daszak-denies-ecohealth-violated-nih-rules-and-defends-work-with-wuhan-lab/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">long denied</a> that EcoHealth violated NIH rules, and former government officials, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, pushed back on claims that the U.S. agency funded gain-of-function research &#8212; in which viruses are manipulated to become more dangerous. The Trump administration <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/04/29/847948272/why-the-u-s-government-stopped-funding-a-research-project-on-bats-and-coronaviru" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pulled funding</a> for EcoHealth, but NIH <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01566-0" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reinstated</a> a grant — with restrictions — last year.
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&#8220;EcoHealth Alliance is disappointed by HHS&#8217; decision today and we will be contesting the proposed debarment,&#8221; an EcoHealth Alliance spokesperson told The Daily Wire in an email. &#8220;We disagree strongly with the decision and will present evidence to refute each of these allegations and to show that NIH&#8217;s continued support of EcoHealth Alliance is in the public interest.&#8221;
More than <a href="https://data.who.int/dashboards/covid19/deaths?n=o" target="_blank" rel="noopener">7 million people</a> diagnosed with COVID-19 have died worldwide. The origin of the pandemic became a topic of fierce debate, with two leading theories being there was a natural emergence or a lab leak. Beijing <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/14/world/asia/china-covid-wuhan-lab-leak.html">denied being to blame</a>, but <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/classified-docs-credibly-suggest-covid-originated-wuhan-lab-leak-covered-up-ccp-house-rep" target="_blank" rel="noopener">State Department records suggest</a> COVID emerged from a &#8220;lab-related accident&#8221; and the Chinese Communist Party tried to cover it up.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who has <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trying-to-cover-your-a-rand-paul-charges-fauci-with-attempting-to-change-definition-of-gain-of-function-research" target="_blank" rel="noopener">driven an inquiry</a> in the upper chamber into Fauci and the pandemic&#8217;s origins, <a href="https://twitter.com/RandPaul/status/1790803637691671018" target="_blank" rel="noopener">responded</a> to the HHS decision by posting to X, &#8220;Finally, the Biden Admin. agrees to ban Peter Daszak and EcoHealth Alliance, who financed the gain-of-function research in Wuhan, from getting any more taxpayer $.&#8221;
Coronavirus Pandemic Subcommittee Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) said his panel will continue to investigate EcoHealth and the origins of COVID-19, including efforts to secure outstanding documents from Daszak and his team to answer questions from congressional investigators.
&#8220;We will hold EcoHealth accountable for any waste, fraud, and abuse and are committed to uncovering any illegal activity, including lying to Congress, NIH, or the Inspector General,&#8221; Wenstrup <a href="https://oversight.house.gov/release/breaking-hhs-suspends-funding-and-proposes-formal-debarment-of-ecohealth-alliance-cites-evidence-from-covid-select-report/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">added in a statement</a>.

Dr. Peter Daszak Of EcoHealth Alliance Testifies To House Select Subcommittee On The Coronavirus Pandemic

HHS Moves To Defund EcoHealth Alliance, Says Action Needed ‘To Protect The Public Interest’

HHS Moves To Defund EcoHealth Alliance, Says Action Needed 'To Protect The Public Interest'

Congress

COVID

Rand Paul

U.S.

U.S. House of Representatives

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is awarding nearly $700,000 taxpayer dollars to back pregnancy prevention programs for young girls who identify as boys, warning that “heteronormative” sexual education is inadequate.
The $698,736 grant, which began in September 2023 and will continue until June 2027, according to <a href="https://www.usaspending.gov/award/ASST_NON_R01NR020846_7529/">government disclosures</a>, will be allocated to the <a href="https://innovativepublichealth.org/">Center for Innovative Public Health Research</a>, a non-profit that seeks to create “an inclusive teen pregnancy program for transgender boys.”
“Youth who are assigned female at birth … are at risk for negative sexual health outcomes yet are effectively excluded from sexual health programs because gender-diverse youth do not experience the cisgender, heteronormative teen sexual education messaging available to them as salient or applicable,” the <a href="https://www.usaspending.gov/award/ASST_NON_R01NR020846_7529/">award description</a> claims.
“Data suggest that AFAB [assigned female at birth] trans-identified youth may be less likely to use condoms when having sex with people who have penises and are at least as likely as cisgender girls to be pregnant,” it goes on to say before adding that the &#8220;health inequity must be addressed.”
The Center for Innovative Public Health Research aims to provide sex education via a <a href="https://innovativepublichealth.org/publications/girl2girl-how-to-develop-a-salient-pregnancy-prevention-program-for-cisgender-sexual-minority-adolescent-girls/">program</a> called “Girl2Girl,” which the organization describes as “a text messaging based-sexual health program designed for cisgender sexual minority girls 14-18 years of age.”
The center will then “test the resulting adaptation” in a national cohort of “700 trans-identified AFAB youth 14-18 years of age,” measuring their use of contraception and testing for sexually transmitted diseases, as well as pregnancy rates.
The funding from the HHS specifically comes from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Nursing Research. The National Institute of Nursing Research was <a href="https://www.usaspending.gov/federal_account/075-0889">given authority</a> to spend a total of $57 million taxpayer dollars in fiscal year 2024.
The Center for Innovative Public Health Research is slated to receive <a href="https://www.usaspending.gov/award/ASST_NON_R01NR020309_7529">another $1.4 million</a> taxpayer dollars from HHS to develop a “population-based HIV prevention program for trans girls,” specifying that the program will “address the lack of gender inclusive HIV prevention programming.”
“Messaging will be gender affirming” and will “reduce internalized transphobia,” the award description adds.
But the award for nearly $700,000 taxpayer dollars is not the only action that the HHS has taken to push transgenderism. The Daily Wire previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/nih-funds-study-on-puberty-blockers-hormones-on-youth-despite-risk-of-sterilization">revealed</a> that the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a subagency of the HHS, funded a study on the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormone treatment <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/republican-senators-blast-nih-for-3-million-grant-to-expand-medical-transitions-for-minors">to the tune of $3 million</a> despite transgender children&#8217;s hospitals admitting that the practice could result in permanent sterilization.
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Kentucky Senator Rand Paul confronted Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former chief White House medical adviser and former director of NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), saying he should “take some responsibility for funding gain-of-function research in Wuhan,” while saying &#8220;what you’ve done is change the definition on your website to try to cover your a**.&#8221;
“I don’t expect you today to admit that you approved of NIH funding for gain-of-function research in Wuhan, but your repeated denials have worn thin and a majority of Americans frankly, don’t believe you,” Paul began. “Even the NIH now admits that EcoHealth Alliance (the non-profit that <a href="https://theintercept.com/2021/09/09/covid-origins-gain-of-function-research/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">collaborated</a> with the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the nearby Wuhan University Center for Animal Experiment) did perform experiments in Wuhan that created viruses not found in nature that actually did gain in lethality. The facts are clear: The NIH did fund gain-of-function research in Wuhan, despite your protestations.”
In September 2021, The Intercept <a href="https://theintercept.com/2021/09/09/covid-origins-gain-of-function-research/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> evidence showing that the EcoHealth Alliance, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and the nearby Wuhan University Center for Animal Experiment had engaged in gain-of-function research “intentionally making viruses more pathogenic or transmissible in order to study them &#8230; grant money for the controversial experiment came from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which is headed by Anthony Fauci.&#8221;
“Your persistent denials, though, are not simply a stain on your reputation, but are a clear and present danger to the country and to the world,” Paul stated.
Later in the confrontation, Paul asked, “Will you today, finally take some responsibility for funding gain-of-function research in Wuhan?”
“Senator, with all due respect, I disagree with so many of the things that you said. First of all, gain-of-function is a very nebulous term; we have spent, not us, but outside bodies, a considerable amount of effort to give a more precise definition to the type of research that is of concern that might lead to a dangerous situation. You are aware of that; that is called P3CO,” Fauci answered.
“We’re aware that you deleted gain-of-function from the NIH website,” Paul interjected.
“Well, I can get back to that in a moment if we have time, but let’s get back to the operating framework and guiderails of which we operate under,” Fauci deflected. “And you have ignored them. the guidelines are very, very clear: that you have to be dealing with a pathogen that clearly is shown and very likely to be highly transmissible in an uncontrollable way in humans and to have a high degree of morbidity and mortality and that you do experiments to enhance that, hence the word EPPP: enhanced pathogens potential pandemic.”
Paul pointed out that EcoHealth Alliance took a virus and combined it with WIV-1 to cause a “recombinant virus that doesn’t exist in nature,” adding, “and it made mice sicker — mice that had humanized cells — you’re saying that’s not gain-of-function research?”
“According to the framework and guidelines —” Fauci responded.
“So what you’re doing is defining away gain-of-function; you’re simply saying it doesn’t exist cause you changed the definition on the NIH website,” Paul accused. “This is terrible, and you’re completely trying to escape the idea that we should do something about trying to prevent a pandemic from leaking from a lab. The preponderance of evidence now points toward this coming from a lab, and what you’ve done is change the definition on your website to try to cover your a** basically. That’s what you’ve done; you’ve changed the website to have a new definition that doesn’t include the risky research that’s going on. Until you admit that it’s risky, we’re not gonna get anywhere. You have to admit that this research was risky. The NIH has now rebuked them. Your own agency has rebuked them. But the thing is you’re still unwilling to admit that they gained in function when they say that became sicker; they gained in lethality. It’s a new virus. That’s not gain-of-function?”
“According to the definition that’s currently operable &#8230; the current definition was done over a two to three-year period by outside bodies, including the NSABB, two conferences by the National Academy of Science, Engineering and Medicine on December 2014, March 2016. We commissioned external risk-benefit assessment, and then on January of 2017, the Office of Science and Technology Policy of the White House issued the current policy,” Fauci said.
Paul then pointed out: “And coincidentally, the definition appeared on the same day that the NIH said that yes, there was a gain-of-function in Wuhan; the same day the definition appeared; the new definition to try to define away what’s going on in Wuhan. Until you accept it, we’re not going to get responsibility; we’re not going to get anywhere close to trying to prevent another lab leak of this dangerous sort of experiment.”
<iframe loading="lazy" title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JBqXYpO1QpE?si=CU_okvaBbSABEgeA" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>

US-POLITICS-CONGRESS-HOMELAND-SECURITY

Trying To ‘Cover Your A**’: Rand Paul Charges Fauci With Attempting To Change Definition Of Gain-Of-Function Research

Anthony Fauci

Wuhan Institute of Virology

A watchdog group has raised a red flag over a promise — from President <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/joe-biden" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Joe Biden</a>’s choice to head up the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/nih" target="_blank" rel="noopener">National Institute of Health</a> — to not take any money or work for a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/big-pharma" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Big Pharma</a> company for four years after leaving her position. 
Monica Bertagnolli, Biden’s pick to head up the NIH, made the promise in a <a href="https://www.warren.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Bertagnolli%20Letter%20to%20Senator%20Warren%2008.2023.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">letter</a> sent earlier this month to Massachusetts Senator <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/elizabeth-warren" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Elizabeth Warren</a>. The promise, though, is “bogus” because it would still allow her research to be funded by pharmaceutical companies, according to the American Accountability Foundation. 
&#8220;Monica Bertagnolli is one of the worst nominees Biden has chosen. Her history of incompetence as a doctor and her tight relationship with Big Pharma make her unqualified for this position. Her attempts now to fool Congress with this bogus &#8216;ethics pledge&#8217; just reinforces this. Sen. Warren needs to reject this ploy and make Dr. Bertagnolli answer for her past,” said AAF President Tom Jones in a statement to The Daily Wire. 
Bertagnolli has faced opposition after her appointment three months ago, including from Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who has been using her nomination <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/08/29/biden-elizabeth-warren-concession-nih-director-00113307" target="_blank" rel="noopener">to pressure</a> the White House over drug prices. 
“In response to our conversation, I am willing to voluntarily extend the recusal period from two years to four years for all particular matters involving companies with which I have a previous working relationship,” Bertagnolli wrote. “If confirmed as NIH Director, I will also further commit for four years following my tenure to not seek employment with or compensation from, including as a result of board service, any pharmaceutical company with annual revenues at or above $10 billion.”
Research associated with Bertagnolli, has brought in hundreds of millions of dollars, including tens of millions from COVID vaccine manufacturer Pfizer, <a href="https://openpaymentsdata.cms.gov/physician/114497" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Service&#8217;s Open Payments site. 
According to Open Payments, Pfizer gave over $30 million to research associated with Bertagnolli in 2022 and biotech company Seagen Inc. gave over $22 million that same year. Associated research is defined as funding “for a research project of study where the physician is named as a principal investigator.”
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A <a href="https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-nih-biden-pfizer-cancer-882296155977" target="_blank" rel="noopener">fact-check</a> from the Associated Press on a social media posting about Bertagnolli’s ties to Pfizer said that the funding was not directly to her, but that much of the funding went toward a clinical trial for cancer treatment. 
“That may be accurate, but it misses the point. Monica Bertagnolli is profiting handsomely off of the pharmaceutical industry’s support for her research. Funds have flowed through to her salary at Brigham and Women’s Hospital / Dana Farber Cancer Institute where she is a researcher,” a memo from the AAF said. 
The AAF has also pointed to Bertagnolli’s previous ties to Natera, where she earned hundreds of thousands of dollars in stock and was on the board, before she joined the National Cancer Institute. Natera has been scrutinized in the media, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/01/upshot/pregnancy-birth-genetic-testing.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">including</a> the New York Times, who reported that Natera’s genetic testing products can often lead to false positives or negatives.

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