From the Brownstone Institute

BY ROBERT MALONE 

Wenstrup Releases Former NIH Director Francis Collins’ Transcript, Highlights Key Takeaways in New Memo

WASHINGTON — Today, Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) released the transcript from Dr. Francis Collins’ transcribed interview. Dr. Collins helped lead the government’s Covid-19 pandemic response as the Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) until his resignation at the end of 2021. In conjunction with the transcript, the Select Subcommittee also released a new staff memo that highlights the key takeaways from Dr. Collins’ transcribed interview. The memo can be found here.

The full transcript can be found here. Below are important exchanges from Dr. Collins’ transcribed interview:

The hypothesis that the Covid-19 pandemic was the result of a lab leak or lab-related accident is not a conspiracy theory. Despite previously disagreeing with the lab-leak theory — both in public and in private — Dr. Collins testified that the lab-leak hypothesis is indeed not a conspiracy theory.

Majority Counsel: “All it’s calling for is a “yes” or “no.” Is the possibility of a lab leak a conspiracy theory?”

Dr. Collins: “You have to define what you mean by a lab leak.”

Majority Counsel: “Putting aside de novo, the possibility of a laboratory or research-related accident, a researcher doing something in a lab, getting infected with a virus, and then sparking the pandemic. Is that scenario a conspiracy theory”?

Dr. Collins: “Not at this point.”

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Majority Counsel: “We have talked about this an awful lot, I think I know the answer to the question, but I want to ask it. Is the origin of Covid-19 still unsettled science?”

Dr. Collins: “Yes.”

The “6-feet apart” social distancing guidance that federal public health officials endorsed was likely not based on any science or data. Dr. Collins agreed with Dr. Fauci that he has not seen any evidence to support the “6-feet apart” directive — which was promoted by public health officials and caused widespread economic and social damage to Americans.

Majority Counsel: “Moving on to social distancing and the various regulations surrounding that. On March 22, 2020, the CDC issued guidance describing social distancing to include remaining out congregant settings, avoiding mass gatherings, and maintaining a distance of approximately six feet from others when possible. We asked Dr. Fauci where the six feet came from and he said it kind of just appeared, is the quote. Do you recall science or evidence that supported the six-feet distance?”

Dr. Collins: “I do not.”

Majority Counsel: “Is that I do not recall or I do not see any evidence supporting six feet?”

Dr. Collins: “I did not see evidence, but I’m not sure I would have been shown evidence at that point.”

Majority Counsel: “Since then, it has been an awfully large topic. Have you seen any evidence since then supporting six feet?”

Dr. Collins: “No.”

NIH often lacks the necessary subject matter expertise to ensure US taxpayer funds are spent safely. Concerningly, Dr. Collins was unaware of any NIH policy that ensures foreign laboratories comply with US standards and are not at odds with U.S. national interests.

Majority Counsel: “Thank you. We’ve asked a number of people regarding the vetting or certifying process of foreign labs that receive U.S. dollars. Do you know what that process is?”

Dr. Collins: “I do not.”

Majority Counsel: “To your knowledge, does NIH certify foreign labs that receive U.S. dollars?”

Dr. Collins: “I don’t know that.”

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Majority Counsel: “Again, what we’re trying to figure out is if, like, you get a proposal that has a foreign lab on it, if the NIH would do all the work themselves, or if they would call the State Department, or if they would call some other department to try to determine if that foreign lab is reputable.”

Dr. Collins: “I don’t know.”

The Trump Administration led the charge to rightfully terminate and later suspend EcoHealth Alliance, Inc.’s grant in April 2020. Dr. Collins testified that he supported every enforcement action suggested by the Trump administration and executed by the NIH.

Majority Counsel: “Moving into 2020. Before we start with individual letters, we asked Dr. Lauer and he testified that he would not sign or send a letter that he disagreed with. Do you have any reason to doubt that assertion?”

Dr. Collins: “No.”

Majority Counsel: “Do you agree with every enforcement action the NIH took against EcoHealth?”

Dr. Collins: “Yes.”

Dr. Collins claims that Dr. Fauci invited him to participate in the infamous February 1, 2020 phone call that allegedly “prompted” the public narrative that Covid-19 originated from nature and that vilified the lab-leak hypothesis.

This testimony directly contradicts earlier statements made by Dr. Fauci.

Majority Counsel: “How were you made aware of this call?”

Dr. Collins: “I was, I think – again, it’s four years ago – initially informed by Dr. Fauci that the call was happening. And then, I think I got this email forwarded about what the agenda was going to be from Dr. Farrar, who was clearly the person organizing the call.”

Majority Counsel: “Did Dr. Fauci ask you to join the call?”

Dr. Collins: “Yes.”

There we have it. Ex-director NIH Francis Collins had NO data and has not seen any data to support the social distancing edicts from HHS.

The transcript itself documents that Director Collins had evidence that masking would harm children.

From the transcript:

Q: In the realm of masking, obviously masks became this big to-do during the pandemic. One of the specific aspects that we are interested in is the science and data that supported it for children. So the WHO recommended against masking children less than five because masks are, I’m quoting, not in the overall interest of the child, and against children 6 to 11 from wearing masks because of again, quoting, the potential impact of wearing a mask on learning and psychological development. The United States recommended masking kids as young as two, so directly contradicted the WHO’s recommendation on that. 

Do you recall what science or data backed up that recommendation?

Collins: I have no knowledge of that. 

Q: Okay. There are now studies coming out regarding learning loss from both school closures and childhood mask wearing — for masks specifically, kids not being able to see adults form words and things like that and it’s causing speech issues. Are you aware of those issues? 

Collins: In a general way, yes. 

Q: Do you agree that there’s learning loss and other unintended consequences of mask-wearing? 

Collins: I have to depend on the experts who assess those things who have evidence, they say, that that’s the case.

This is all the evidence required to conclusively demonstrate that the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) needs a complete overhaul.

Republished from the author’s Substack

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By ADAM ANDRZEJEWSKI

Last week details emerged from the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, confirming what government transparency advocates long suspected: Federal bureaucrats are purposefully stonewalling the American people’s right to know about their government.

Republican Kentucky Rep. James Comer, who chairs the full House Oversight and Accountability Committee, read from an email that Dr. David Morens, a top aide to Dr. Anthony Fauci, sent claiming that a staffer inside the National Institutes of Health (NIH) had shown him how to erase records requested by the public.

He was corresponding with Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, the organization that used tax dollars to fund controversial gain-of-function research in Wuhan, where the COVID outbreak began. The Department of Health and Human Services has since suspended funding of EcoHealth Alliance.

Morens wrote: “I learned from our FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) lady here how to make emails disappear after I am FOIA’d, 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.”

The implications for government transparency are enormous. How often do NIH staffers conceal what they do with our tax dollars? Why did a FOIA officer feel empowered to assist subjects of FOIA requests? How else do FOIA offers interfere with these requests? Has this behavior spread to the Centers for Disease Control and other agencies?

Our auditors at OpenTheBooks.com can speak to the problem. We have spent years — and gone to court — to force NIH to reveal the royalties paid to government scientists through medical innovation licensing.

When Americans are considering a drug or therapeutic recommended by public health officials, they deserve to understand all the financial stakes at play. Were any decision makers receiving payments? Were they continuing more lucrative research at the expense of other public health solutions?

For many, the question looming largest has been whether the relentless COVID vaccine push was driven by a potential windfall for NIH and certain scientists there.

When we first filed a FOIA, the agency ignored us and then refused to release the information.

After suing, NIH was required to release the information and began doing so incrementally due to the high volume of data. Tallied from 2009 through 2020, it amounted to an enormous sum–over $325 million paid by private companies to NIH and its scientists over 56,000 transactions.

Previously, we’d also discovered that Dr. Fauci, the face of the nation’s COVID response, was the highest compensated bureaucrat in the country. He out-earned President Biden. He out-earned his own boss, then-Acting NIH Director Lawrence Tabak.

Along with Fauci, who scoffed at concerns about royalty payments, Tabak faced questions from Congress.

In a March 2023 budget hearing, Rep. John Moolenaar told Tabak an obvious truth: every single, secret royalty payment represents a potential conflict of interest.

“To me, one of the biggest concerns people had during this last couple years is: Were they getting truthful information from their government? Could they trust what people were saying about the medicines? To me, that creates a very disturbing appearance.”

“The idea that people were getting a financial benefit from certain research that was done and grants that were awarded, that to me is the height of the appearance of a conflict of interest,” Moolenaar concluded.

The lawmaker urged NIH to make the money trail more transparent.

It was Tabak in the hot seat again last week, as Comer recited Morens’ outrageous email message.

Was the behavior he described consistent with NIH policy, Comer asked? “It is not,” Tabak responded flatly.

Did the FOIA team at NIH help its colleagues avoid transparency? “I certainly hope not,” Tabak offered.

Hope doesn’t suffice in this situation. It demands that lawmakers strengthen transparency law, update it for the 21^st century and create some consequences for bad actors.

There are a few primary ways bureaucrats and decisionmakers violate the spirit of the law.

First, they overuse a series of exemptions designed to protect national security secrets or privacy laws. Too much is omitted through these exceptions; the American people deserve the full truth.

When documents are produced, they’re too often rendered useless through excessive redactions. We’re still fighting in real time to get more pieces of the royalty puzzle revealed.

Next, unreasonable delays are blamed on staffing levels, while many FOIA-related roles sit open. Agencies must prioritize filling those seats and Congress should appropriate more of them as needed.

Finally, we have the behavior Morens describes. A post facto effort to simply abscond with the information. It’s not just a policy violation but an affront to the spirit of the Freedom of Information Act. What consequences do these staffers ever truly face?

Until we get serious about protecting transparency, “FOIA lady” will be a duly anonymous symbol of what many have suspected: government employees hustling to cover their tracks.

Adam Andrzejewski is founder & CEO of OpenTheBooks.com, the nation’s largest private database of public spending.