COVID-19
Dr. Fauci’s Lieutenant on the Hot Seat
From the Brownstone Institute
BY
In a moment of rare bipartisan denunciation, Democrat Representative Kweisi Mfume (D-MD) confronted Dr. David Morens, longtime advisor to Dr. Fauci: “Sir, I think you’re going to be haunted by your testimony today.”
Dr. Morens, a senior scientific advisor at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), has been embroiled in controversy following revelations of his attempts to seemingly conceal embarrassing information about his personal friend and NIH grant recipient, Dr. Peter Daszak, President of EcoHealth Alliance. Morens’s attempts to evade Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests laid bare yesterday in front of the Select Committee on Covid-19 were eye-opening and disturbing.
Dr. Morens frequently used his personal email to conduct official business, explicitly to avoid FOIA scrutiny. He emailed a colleague in May 2020: “So you and Peter and others should be able to email me on gmail only.”

In other uncovered correspondence, Dr. Morens openly discussed methods to delete federal records to prevent their release under FOIA: “I learned from our FOIA lady here how to make emails disappear after I am FOIAed, but before the search starts, so I think we are all safe. Plus I deleted most of those earlier emails after sending them to Gmail.”

In one particularly shocking email, Dr. Morens asked Dr. Peter Daszak for monetary reimbursement—specifically a “kickback”—for his assistance in editing EcoHealth Alliance’s grant compliance efforts. Although this allegation has yet to be confirmed, the email reads: “…do I get a kickback???? Too much fooking money!”

Under testimony, Dr. Morens claimed that this was simply “black humor” and “joking” with his friend Peter Daszak—who is now under disbarment from NIH grants following serious mismanagement of grants to his company EcoHealth Alliance.
In addition to Dr. Morens’s FOIA endrun revelations, the emails also contained unprofessional and misogynistic comments. He seemingly disparaged CDC Director Rochelle Walensky attributing her appointment to her sex: “Well, she does wear a skirt…”
Representative Mary Miller-Meeks (R-IO) confronted Dr. Morens on these issues: “You’re trusted with one of the highest positions in government to combat public health crises. And instead of doing your job, you’re too busy worried about avoiding FOIAs and challenging someone’s position because they happen to wear a skirt.”
Morens apologized but seemed to downplay the significance of his comments: “…it was the same snarky, joking stuff.” But Rep. Miller-Meeks was having none of it. She interrupted: “That’s not a snarky joke. That is an underlying behavior that indicates how you approach women and how you think of women, and it’s disgusting.”
At the heart of the matter is what Dr. Morens was doing to hide information to protect Peter Daszak and even Dr. Fauci from embarrassing revelations of their actions during the Covid-19 pandemic. In emails, Morens discussed back-channeling information to Dr. Fauci to avoid FOIA requests: “I can either send stuff to Tony on his private gmail, or hand it to him…” Confronted by these emails, Morens dismissed them: “There are some elements of this that I don’t think are being understood.”
Additional emails further reveal Fauci’s involvement in offline communications, potentially undermining US government operations by assisting Dr. Morens’s efforts to share internal NIH information with Dr. Peter Daszak.
For instance, Dr. Morens shared confidential information marked (For Official Use Only) with Daszak: “Please feel free to share any docs that I’ve sent to you, with Tony. Hopefully, you can do that in a way that avoids FOIA, and if not possible, just show him stuff on screen share on Zoom.”
Dr. Morens and Dr. Fauci have collaborated and co-authored numerous papers and articles over the years but Morens seemed to downplay his relationship with Dr. Fauci: “I never gone out with him to have a beer.”
Representative Michael Cloud (R-TX) read the email regarding the “FOIA lady” instructing him on how to avoid the information requests. Morens objected: “She gave me [no info] about avoiding FOIA.” Cloud pushed back: “So you were lying then but you’re telling us the truth now?” Morens dug deeper: “I was making a joke with Peter, I said something like ‘I have a way to make it go away’ but that was just a euphemism.”
These past few weeks have been busy for the Select Committee of Covid-19, headed by Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R_OH). They have long requested the disbarment of EcoHealth Alliance and Peter Daszak from the NIH, and the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has initiated formal proceedings. The May 15, 2024 memorandum from HHS underscores the severity of EcoHealth’s compliance failures, emphasizing the need for exacting oversight in public health research.
As background to all of this, the ideological framework that Fauci and Morens have consistently promoted over two decades of co-authorship gives some color commentary on where the stringent pandemic policies originated. Their collaboration began with largely technical papers on infectious diseases, yet over time, their recommendations expanded significantly in ambition.
Their earliest publications together (which started in 2004) seemed to show cautious optimism for tackling infectious diseases without breaching individual rights or governance norms. By 2007, their tone had noticeably shifted. In an article on the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, they warned against complacency and hinted at the necessity for heightened vigilance.
In their 2012 work, “The Perpetual Challenge of Infectious Diseases,” they moved even further, declaring eradication—rather than just mitigation—as the new goal, emphasizing a radical new approach to managing infectious diseases.
Their evolution was cemented in a 2016 article on the Zika Virus. In it, they posited that human behaviors and modern societal structures were significant contributors to the emergence of diseases.
…in our human-dominated world, urban crowding, constant international travel, and other human behaviors combined with human-caused microperturbations in ecologic balance can cause innumerable slumbering infectious agents to emerge unexpectedly. In response, we clearly need to up our game…
The implications of crowds spreading sickness are not new, but the corollary here is that human actions need strict regulation to prevent future outbreaks, a policy evolution that would have significant impacts just four years down the line.
The culmination of these ideas appeared starkly in their widely-cited 2020 “Cell Magazine” article in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. Here, Fauci and Morens argued for transformative changes in human behavior and infrastructure to live “in greater harmony with nature.” They contended that human behaviors fundamentally disrupt the “human-microbial status quo,” leading to disease outbreaks.
This article was a watershed, revealing their vision of a restructured society to prevent pandemics—an ideological stance that has drawn criticism for its potentially authoritarian overtones.
Fauci and Morens’s advocacy for “rebuilding the infrastructures of human existence” was more than a scientific proposal; it was a call for a societal overhaul.
They seem to pine for yesteryear without all the hustling and bustling: “Since we cannot return to ancient times, can we at least use lessons from those times to bend modernity in a safer direction?”
Nothing epitomizes the US Government’s response to the pandemic like the loaded phrase: “bend modernity in a safer direction.”
Now, with Dr. Morens’s skirting FOIA requests and promoting ways to “[make] it all go away” – the hubris is laid bare for all to see.
The deceitful actions of Drs. Morens, Daszak, and Fauci, their evasion of FOIAs, and their backroom dealings have severely undermined public trust. As these revelations come to light, it is crucial for us to demand greater transparency and integrity from our public health officials. Only then can we restore faith in our health institutions and ensure they truly serve the public good.
Republished from the author’s Substack
COVID-19
New report warns Ottawa’s ‘nudge’ unit erodes democracy and public trust
The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms has released a new report titled Manufacturing consent: Government behavioural engineering of Canadians, authored by veteran journalist and researcher Nigel Hannaford. The report warns that the federal government has embedded behavioural science tactics in its operations in order to shape Canadians’ beliefs, emotions, and behaviours—without transparency, debate, or consent.
The report details how the Impact and Innovation Unit (IIU) in Ottawa is increasingly using sophisticated behavioural psychology, such as “nudge theory,” and other message-testing tools to influence the behaviour of Canadians.
Modelled after the United Kingdom’s Behavioural Insights Team, the IIU was originally presented as an innocuous “innovation hub.” In practice, the report argues, it has become a mechanism for engineering public opinion to support government priorities.
With the arrival of Covid, the report explains, the IIU’s role expanded dramatically. Internal government documents reveal how the IIU worked alongside the Public Health Agency of Canada to test and design a national communications strategy aimed at increasing compliance with federal vaccination and other public health directives.
Among these strategies, the government tested fictitious news reports on thousands of Canadians to see how different emotional triggers would help reduce public anxiety about emerging reports of adverse events following immunization. These tactics were designed to help achieve at least 70 percent vaccination uptake, the target officials associated with reaching “herd immunity.”
IIU techniques included emotional framing—using fear, reassurance, or urgency to influence compliance with policies such as lockdowns, mask mandates, and vaccine requirements. The government also used message manipulation by emphasizing or omitting details to shape how Canadians interpreted adverse events after taking the Covid vaccine to make them appear less serious.
The report further explains that the government adopted its core vaccine message—“safe and effective”—before conclusive clinical or real-world data even existed. The government then continued promoting that message despite early reports of adverse reactions to the injections.
Government reliance on behavioural science tactics—tools designed to steer people’s emotions and decisions without open discussion—ultimately substituted genuine public debate with subtle behavioural conditioning, making these practices undemocratic. Instead of understanding the science first, the government focused primarily on persuading Canadians to accept its narrative. In response to these findings, the Justice Centre is calling for immediate safeguards to protect Canadians from covert psychological manipulation by their own government.
The report urges:
- Parliamentary oversight of all behavioural science uses within federal departments, ensuring elected representatives retain oversight of national policy.
- Public disclosure of all behavioural research conducted with taxpayer funds, creating transparency of government influence on Canadians’ beliefs and decisions.
- Independent ethical review of any behavioural interventions affecting public opinion or individual autonomy, ensuring accountability and informed consent.
Report author Mr. Hannaford said, “No democratic government should run psychological operations on its own citizens without oversight. If behavioural science is being used to influence public attitudes, then elected representatives—not unelected strategists—must set the boundaries.”
COVID-19
Major new studies link COVID shots to kidney disease, respiratory problems
From LifeSiteNews
Receiving four or more COVID shots was associated with 559% higher likelihood of cold in children, a new study found, and another one linked the shots to higher risk of renal dysfunction.
Two major new studies have been published sounding the alarm about the COVID-19 shots potentially carrying risks of not only respiratory diseases but even kidney injury.
The Washington Stand first drew attention to the studies, published in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases (IJID) and International Journal of Medical Science (IJMS), respectively.
The first examined insurance claims and vaccination records for the entire population of South Korea, filtering out cases of infection prior to the start of the outbreak for a pool of more than 39 million people. It reported that the COVID shots correlated with mixed impacts on other respiratory conditions. A “temporary decline followed by a resurgence of URI [upper respiratory infections] and common cold was observed during and after the COVID-19 pandemic,” it concluded. “In the Post-pandemic period (January 2023–September 2024), the risk of URI and common cold increased with higher COVID-19 vaccine doses,” it noted.
Children in particular, who are known to face the lowest risk from COVID itself, had dramatically higher odds of adverse events the more shots they took. Receiving four or more was associated with 559% higher likelihood of cold, 91% higher likelihood of pneumonia, 83% higher likelihood of URI, and 35% higher likelihood of tuberculosis.
The second study examined records of 2.9 million American adults, half of whom received at least one COVID shot and half of whom did not.
“COVID-19 vaccination was associated with a higher risk of subsequent renal dysfunction, including AKI [acute kidney injury] and dialysis treatment,” it found, citing 15,809 cases versus 11,081. “The cumulative incidence of renal dysfunction was significantly higher in vaccinated than in unvaccinated patients […] At the one-year follow-up, the number of deaths among vaccinated individuals was 7,693, while the number of deaths among unvaccinated individuals was 7,364.” Notably, the study did not find a difference in the “type of COVID-19 vaccine administered.”
The researchers note that this is not simply a matter of correlation, but that a causal mechanism for such results has already been indicated.
“Prior studies have indicated that COVID-19 vaccines can damage several tissues,” they explain.
“The main pathophysiological mechanism of COVID-19 vaccine-related complications involve vascular disruption. COVID-19 vaccination can induce inflammation through interleukins and the nod-like receptor family pyrin domain-containing 3, an inflammatory biomarker. In another study, thrombosis episodes were observed in patients who received different COVID-19 vaccines. Additionally, mRNA COVID-19 vaccines have been associated with the development of myocarditis and related complications […] The development of renal dysfunction can be affected by several biochemical factors [26]. In turn, AKI can increase systemic inflammation and impair the vasculature and red blood cell aggregation. Given that the mechanism underlying COVID-19 vaccine-related complications corresponds to the pathophysiology of kidney disease, we hypothesized that COVID-19 vaccination may cause renal dysfunction, which was supported by the results of this study.”
Launched in the final year of President Donald Trump’s first term in response to COVID-19, Operation Warp Speed (OWS) had the COVID shots ready for use in a fraction of the time any previous vaccine had ever been developed and tested. As LifeSiteNews has extensively covered, a body of evidence steadily accumulated over the following years that they failed to prevent transmission and, more importantly, carried severe risks of their own. COVID was a sticking point for many in Trump’s base, yet he doggedly refused to disavow OWS.
Since leaving office, Trump repeatedly promoted the shots as “one of the greatest achievements of mankind.” The negative reception to such comments got him to drop the subject for a while, but in July 2022, he complained that “we did so much in terms of therapeutics and a word that I’m not allowed to mention. But I’m still proud of that word, because we did that in nine months, and it was supposed to take five years to 12 years. Nobody else could have done it. But I’m not mentioning it in front of my people.”
So far, Trump’s second administration has rolled back several recommendations for the shots but not yet pulled them from the market, despite hiring several vocal critics of the COVID establishment and putting the Department of Health & Human Services under the leadership of America’s most prominent anti-vaccine activist, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Most recently, the administration has settled on leaving the current vaccines optional but not supporting work to develop successors.
In early August, Kennedy announced the government would be “winding down” almost $500 million worth of mRNA vaccine projects and rejecting future exploration of the technology in favor of more conventional vaccines. Last week, HHS revoked emergency use authorizations (EUA) for the COVID shots, which were used to justify the long-since-rescinded mandates and sidestep other procedural hurdles, and in its place issued “marketing authorization” for those who meet a minimum risk threshold for the following mRNA vaccines: Moderna (6+ months), Pfizer (5+), and Novavax (12+).
“These vaccines are available for all patients who choose them after consulting with their doctors,” Kennedy said, making good on his pledge to “end COVID vaccine mandates, keep vaccines available to people who want them, especially the vulnerable, demand placebo-controlled trials from companies,” and “end the emergency.”
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