Dr. Antony Fauci and other scientists received undisclosed payments totaling as much as $350 million. The royalties were paid to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and hundreds of its scientists, including the agency’s recently departed director, Dr. Francis Collins an investigation by nonprofit government watchdog reveals.
The new report corroborates a 2005 Associated Press investigation that revealed royalty payments at the time.
“We estimate that up to $350 million in royalties from third parties were paid to NIH scientists during the fiscal years between 2010 and 2020,” Open the Books CEO Adam Andrzejewski told reporters in a telephone news conference on May 9.
“We draw that conclusion because, in the first five years, there has been $134 million that we have been able to quantify of top-line numbers that flowed from third-party payers, meaning pharmaceutical companies or other payers, to NIH scientists.”
The first five years, from 2010 to 2014, counted for 40 percent of the total, he pointed out.
“We now know that there are 1,675 scientists that received payments during that period, at least one payment. In fiscal year 2014, for instance, $36 million was paid out and that is on average $21,100 per scientist,” Andrzejewski said.
“We also find that during this period, leadership at NIH was involved in receiving third-party payments. For instance, Francis Collins, the immediate past director of NIH, received 14 payments. Dr. Anthony Fauci received 23 payments and his deputy, Clifford Lane, received eight payments.”
Collins resigned as NIH director in December 2021 after 12 years of leading the world’s largest public health agency. Fauci is the controversial longtime head of NIH’s National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), as well as chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden. Fauci is also the highest-paid government employee in the history of the United States.
The top five NIH employees measured in terms of the number of royalty payments that they received while on the government payroll, according to a fact sheet published by Open the Books, include Robert Gallo, National Cancer Institute, 271 payments; Ira Pastan, National Cancer Institute, 250 payments; Mikulas Popovic, National Cancer Institute, 191 payments; Flossie Wong-Staal, National Cancer Institute, 190 payments; and Mangalasseril Sarngadharan, National Cancer Institute, 188 payments.
Only Pastan continues to be employed by NIH, according to Open the Books.
“When an NIH employee makes a discovery in their official capacity, the NIH owns the rights to any resulting patent. These patents are then licensed for commercial use to companies that could use them to bring products to market,” the fact sheet reads.
“Employees are listed as inventors on the patents and receive a share of the royalties obtained through any licensing, or ‘technology transfer,’ of their inventions. Essentially, taxpayer money funding NIH research benefits researchers employed by NIH because they are listed as patent inventors and therefore receive royalty payments from licensees.”
The NIH is not responding to media requests for comments.
Andrzejewski told reporters that the Associated Press reported extensively on the NIH royalty payments in 2005, including specific details about who got how much from which payers for what work, that the agency is denying to Open the Books in 2022.
“At that time, we knew there were 918 scientists, and each year, they were receiving approximately $9 million, on average with each scientist receiving $9,700. But today, the numbers are a lot larger with the United States still in a declared national health emergency. It’s quite obvious the stakes in health care are a lot larger,” Andrzejewski said.
He said the files Open the Books is receiving—300 pages of line-by-line data—are “heavily redacted.”
Fauci told the AP that there was an appearance of a conflict of interest in getting the royalties while alleging that he contributed his royalties to charity.
Open the Books is a Chicago-based nonprofit government watchdog that uses the federal and state freedom of information laws to obtain and then post on the internet trillions of dollars in spending at all levels of government.
The nonprofit filed a federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) suit seeking documentation of all payments by outside firms to NIH and/or current and former NIH employees.
NIH declined to respond to the FOIA, so Open the Books is taking the agency to court, suing it for noncompliance with the FOIA. Open the Books is represented in federal court in the case by another nonprofit government watchdog, Judicial Watch.
–The Epoch Times and wire services