Dr Anthony Fauci and Dr Francis Collins were among the recipients of the royalties, as an ethical shadow is cast over their Covid legacy.

While Americans suffered under draconian mandates and struggled to put food on the table, scientists from the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) were collecting millions of dollars in hidden royalties, according to a new report.

More than US$325 million in royalties were paid to thousands of government scientists between 2009 and 2020, the documents reveal. Among those to cash in were former White House Chief Medical Advisor Dr Anthony Fauci and former NIH Director Dr Francis Collins, who together took home 58 payments relating to Covid-19 mRNA products.

The release of the records — which ran 1,500 pages long and detailed tens of thousands of transactions — had been stonewalled by the NIH but were eventually surrendered and made public last week by taxpayer watchdog group Open The Books.

Dr Anthony Fauci’s Conflict of Interest

The generous patrons listed in the report included Chinese and Russian entities and pharmaceutical companies. Some benefactors had in turn received U.S. federal grants and contracts, funded by taxpayers, raising serious conflict of interest concerns for government scientists who were in on the take, such as the high profile duo Fauci and Collins.

Collins, for example, was paid by at least four firms that have been awarded nearly $50 million by the U.S. government since 2008.

The revelation may help shed light on the otherwise unexplained fortunes of Fauci, who served as Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) for almost four decades until his retirement in 2022. Between 2019 and 2020, Dr Anthony Fauci’s net worth almost doubled from US$7.5 million to $12.6 million, despite his federal government salary totalling US$450,000 per year.

Open The Books CEO Adam Andrzejewski said:

While Dr Fauci has been a government bureaucrat for more than 55 years, his household net worth skyrocketed during the pandemic. Fauci’s soaring net worth was based on career-end salary spiking, lucrative cash prizes awarded by non-profit organizations around the world and an ever-larger investment portfolio.

Despite becoming a figure of controversy, the system has rewarded Dr Fauci handsomely. For example, he is the top-paid federal employee, his first-year golden parachute retirement pension is the largest in federal history, and he’s accepting US$1 million prizes from foreign non-profits.

In light of the revelations, it is difficult to see how Fauci’s tireless promotion of Covid-19 injectables remained untainted by personal financial incentive.

The Open the Books report likewise casts an ethical shadow over Dr Francis Collins, once celebrated as an exemplar man of faith by top evangelical leaders.

During the Covid era, leaders like Ed Stetzer, Russell Moore, Tim Keller, Rick Warren and N.T. Wright praised Collins for using science for the glory of God and the benefit of humanity, and they promoted him widely via their platforms.

However, many of Collins’ scientific claims later fell flat — including that the lab leak theory was a “conspiracy”, that Covid-19 injections immunised those who took them, and that a cloth mask was a “life saving medical device” (which even the CDC refutes).

Worse, it ultimately came to light that at the same time pastors were hawking Collins as a fellow believer, Collins was secretly colluding with Fauci to discredit factual information about Covid-19 in the mind of the public.

As previously reported by the Daily Declaration:

Thanks to a Freedom of Information Act request, we now know that at the same time these interviews were taking place, Collins knew that top U.S. and British scientists suspected the Wuhan Institute of Virology — not nature — as the source of the virus. And he was eager to bury the theory, fearful of “great potential harm to science and international harm”.

No doubt, Collins was also concerned about harm to his own reputation. In his role as National Institutes of Heath director, Francis Collins has long supported — and his agencies have generously funded — the gain-of-function research that probably explains the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Uncovered emails also show Collins smearing eminent lockdown critics as “fringe epidemiologists”, and calling for a “a quick and devastating published take down” of their ideas to shift public opinion.

Eye-Watering Pharmaceutical Profits

The NIH permits its employees to take up to 15% for royalties between $2,000 and $50,000, and up to 25% for royalties above $50,000. The department’s scientists are not allowed to receive more than $150,000 annually from royalties.

Fauci has previously claimed that he donates all royalties to charity, however he is yet to provide evidence of the donations.

In a seperate but recent matter, Dr Fauci was referred to the Department of Justice by Senator Rand Paul for allegedly lying to Congress about government funding of Chinese labs. His fall from grace follows his earlier, repeated claims that “I represent science”, and that “attacks on me quite frankly are attacks on science”.

Dr Anthony Fauci is not the only public figure to have feathered his nest while Americans suffered under Covid policies that devastated the economy.

An investigative report by The People’s Vaccine Alliance found that Covid-19 injectables helped create at least nine new billionaires with “a combined wealth greater than the cost of vaccinating the world’s poorest countries.”

Their combined net wealth of $19.3 billion came thanks to “the excessive profits pharmaceutical corporations with monopolies on COVID vaccines are making.”

In 2022, Pfizer’s revenue reached a record US$100 billion, and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla took home a US$33 million salary after receiving a 36% pay raise.