According to a non-profit government watchdog group, Anthony Fauci and other scientist working for the NIH were paid about $350 million in undisclosed royalties
Adam Andrzejewski who is the CEO of Open the Books said that the royalties were paid from third parties between 2010-2020,
“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.”
Andrzejewski said that in the first five years 1,675 scientists received payments. In FY 2014, he said, $36 million was paid out which equals about $21,000 per scientist.
Andrzejewski indicated that during that time period Fauci received 23 payments, his deputy Clifford Lane, received eight payments and the most recent director of the NIH received 14 payment
Andrzejewski said that in the past specific details about payments was released such as how much each person was paid, who paid it and what work they were paid for. However, the agency is now denying to give specific information to Open the Books.
“These are not the files the AP received in 2005 where everything was disclosed—the scientist’s name, the name of the third-party payer, the amount of the royalty paid by the payer to the scientist. Today, NIH is producing a heavily redacted database; we don’t know the payment amount to the scientist, and we don’t know the name of the third-party payer, all of that is being redacted.”
And Andrzejewski said that the undisclosed royalty payments are conflicts of interest,
“We believe there is an unholy conflict of interest inherent at NIH. Consider the fact that each year, NIH doles out $32 billion in grants to approximately 56,000 grantees. Now we know that over an 11-year period, there is going to be approximately $350 million flowing the other way from third-party payers, many of which receive NIH grants, and those payments are flowing back to NIH scientists and leadership.”
