And my understanding is that they’re looking for evidence that Fauci was responsible for the pandemic, rather than leading the response to it. Meanwhile they totally ignore the very real deaths of hundreds of thousands worldwide due to the gutting of the United States Agency for International Development.
I’ve generally been on the side of Fauci - and I don’t think that the diary changes the equation in Paul’s favor. It basically shows an initial curiosity into the question of human-causation, leading to investigating the question (i.e. approving research), receiving null results, and reporting as such. Pointing out that Fauci was open to the idea at one point doesn’t really change any of that to become some giant negative.
However, one issue with most things political is that everyone’s more interested in making some pet point than simply running through the evidence that, unless you’re really tracking a topic close enough to catch the few links to real information, you’re liable to hear nothing more than two competing and fully disconnected messages about the topic. In this case, for example, at a glace most of the news seems to mostly be either “Fauci caused the pandemic” vs. “What Fauci’s notes reveal about Trump’s cognitive abilities.”
A little bit of chatting with my AI, though, revealed that - and note that this doesn’t implicate Fauci nor the US is creating the pandemic, it’s more just a question of our research funding rules - the Wuhan bat research study was rejected by DARPA for being too risky. The stated goal was to attach a protein spike to coronaviruses that would allow a safe-to-humans bat virus have the ability to become communicable to humans. By DARPA’s read of the rules, that made the research too dangerous and they declined to provide a grant for the research.
In the case of NIAID - part of the NIH, directed by Fauci - because bat coronaviruses weren’t known to be communicable to humans, the standard (P3CO) that said that you basically shouldn’t fund that research, was ignored. They decided that they should read the rules like a textualist would. If it only mentioned the starting state, not the ending state, then it didn’t apply.
As a non-textualist, I’m fine with harassing Fauci a bit, on the basis of that decision. Whether it caused the pandemic or not, it was still a dumb move.
Which is wat Scientists are supposed to do. In fact if he didn’t do that, then yes, you could question him.
A million Americans died from Covid, experts say anywhere between 1/3 to 2/3rd died due to trumps administrations incompetence. Let us say 500000- there are then half a million Americas that died due to a GOP congress and president. And Rand Paul shares the blame for those deaths. Of course they want to muddy the waters and blame someone else.
As many AIs do show a bias in favor of right wing “points” regarding this issue, were is the evidence that “They decided that they should read the rules like a textualist would.”? When what one sees is that right wing politicians just rely on their ignorance about what was done.
The NIH for years gave grants to a New York nonprofit called EcoHealth Alliance, which used some of the funds to work with a Chinese lab studying coronaviruses commonly carried by bats. But the definition of gain of function covers both general research and especially risky experiments to enhance the ability of potential pandemic viruses to spread or cause severe disease in humans. Fauci has previously stressed he was using the risky experiment definition and that “it would be molecularly impossible” for those bat virus experiments to have turned into the pandemic virus.
The problem for the ignoramus right wing in the US is that the accusations came from Republican led committees **, at odds with what most researches agree nowadays.
** Many, who we have to remember, are ok with poisoning our food, water and atmosphere nowadays.
It’s basically this line from the executive summary of the OIG report:
If Rand Paul keeps this up, Fauci may end up as Time’s Person of the Year.
Again, a report controlled mostly by the Republicans then, and the report is about how the group involved (not really the NIH), “DID NOT EFFECTIVELY MONITOR AWARDS AND SUBAWARDS” Very little about the accusation made here about the research being involved with the pandemic.
So, the library had it but I couldn’t check it out until today. TYVM.
I reserved it about a week ago and figured I’d be waiting in line. Nope, I AM the line.
If you read my first post in the thread, that is what I said.
But, let’s say that you’re investigating catastrophe X and, during that, you discover that a group of scientists was using real, hardcore physics to try and generate nuclear explosions by splitting all the atoms in a glass of water, in the middle of Manhattan. They have little doubt that they can succeed. And their rationale for doing that, without telling nor warning anyone, is because it hasn’t been proven yet that water can be used as the basis for a nuclear bomb, so the usual constraints aren’t applicable.
Catastrophe X could have zero connection to nuclear bombs, water, nor this group of researchers but, geniuses as they might be, they’d still be a group of f’in morons.
A group of f’in morons that according to the report itself, already were punished with fines and did corrective measures… again, very little for the f’in Republican morons of today regarding Fauci… who is not mentioned at all in that report, neither in the fines section.
In calling for more severe penalties against Fauci than a 100K fine and year in prison for “contempt”, MAGA-loon Congressman John McGuire came out with this gem:
Yes, he’s nearly as certifiable as Rand Paul.
Is this an actual dog whistle, in that I have no idea what he’s on about, or is he really taking a shot at the actual sandwich? With fetus parts and vaccines? I don’t know what deli he’s going to, but he should stop.
I wondered myself, so I entered a prompt to Google Gemini asking for the context of McGuire’s quote. Here is Gemini’s response (links left in):
Congressman John McGuire used “BLT” to refer to a Bone-marrow/Liver/Thymus humanized mouse model used in medical research, conflating it with a food item and misrepresenting how COVID-19 vaccines are made while promoting unproven treatments like ivermectin. [1, 2, 3]
The Meaning and Reference of “BLT”
- Scientific Definition: In biomedical research, BLT stands for Bone marrow, Liver, and Thymus. [1]
- The BLT Mouse Model: This is a specialized laboratory mouse implanted with human fetal bone marrow, liver, and thymic tissue to create a functioning human immune system for studying human-specific diseases like HIV. [1, 2, 3]
- The Confusion: Political figures have sometimes invoked the acronym “BLT” mockingly or critically during debates over government funding for human fetal tissue research. [1]
The Context of the Statement
- The Vaccine Claim: The assertion that COVID-19 vaccines contain “human fetus baby parts” is scientifically inaccurate. While decades-old fetal cell lines (such as HEK 293 or WI-38, derived from elective abortions in the 1960s–1970s) were used in the laboratory testing or production phases of some vaccines, no fetal tissue or “baby parts” are present in the final vaccine products. [1, 2, 3, 4]
And let’s not forget that early on in Trump’s first term, he disbanded the Pandemic Response team because he didn’t want to pay those people for “sitting around doing nothing”, and figured he could just reassemble the team later if needed. Of course by the time you realize that you need to get the band back together, it’s already too late.
That was , indeed, part of the reasons why so many died.
And not just in the US. The US had, by far, the most extensive system for monitoring such threats world-wide, and Trump dropping the ball in the early days of the pandemic cost us all, in the form of delayed responses. The later you start with trying to control the spread of a disease, the harder it is to control at all. He cost us all months that we really could have used.
If only he had played Pandemic
I don’t see that this has been addressed.
So I have two takeaways from this:
-
You shouldn’t put down anything in writing on a government server you wouldn’t want to be publicized. Especially a personal diary. That’s on Fauci.
-
Rand Paul and RFK, Jr. are certifiable.
The OIG report does seem suspiciously terse and evidence free.
Unfortunately, it looks like that largely kicks us over to the House Pandemic Subcommittee reports, which were divided on a partisan basis - so I’m basically unable to use any information from either one of them without the risk that a partisan reader will decide to reject one regardless of the ability to track down and identify quotes from their full context, and accept without question the other regardless of whether there’s any supporting evidence for what’s being said.
And I say that blindly. I’ve checked that there are two versions and quickly glanced through. I’m aware of the Democratic complaints about the Republican-lead review and so I know how to confirm or deny the ones that are relevant to this specific discussion but, like I said, that’s a waste of both of our time if the ultimate answer is pre-ordained because the Xs are wrong and liars and the Ys are right and eternal angels.
So I will just note that:
- Fauci was (not directly but in effect) appointed by Ronald Reagan.
- Fauci, per his diary, appears to have been in his private mind perfectly happy to work with and for Donald Trump.
- He appears, again per the diary, to have disliked Nancy Pelosi.
- He was chosen, over people in higher roles in the NIH, to lead the pandemic by Donald Trump because he had the “right energy”.
- The bulk of material in the diary is not about medicine nor saving lives but, it seems, tracking his own personal coverage in the press.
- Under Biden, the P3CO framework was replaced to more forcefully push back on the interpretation and oversight gaps that allowed EcoHealth to get approved and continue forward as it had been.
In case any of that encourages anyone to take a politically disinterested view into the question?
Once in a very great while, an antivaxer will come up with a bullshit argument I hadn’t seen before, and this qualifies.
The “BLT” weirdness relates to a research technique which as you noted has been used in a mouse model, not only to study HIV (the work goes back more than a decade) but also to theoretically enhance response to vaccines and cancer immunotherapy. What apparently set Congressman Looneyberg off is that there’s potential for using mRNA (Satan’s Own Molecule) in nanoparticles (the nanobots make it even more Evil) to give liver cells instructions to make molecules that stimulate production of certain T-cells.
Apparently this technique hasn’t gotten past the mouse stage yet, but this dipshit has seized on it to try to frighten fellow dumbasses into demanding Fauci’s head on a pike.
*I saw a Twitter post today in which an antivaxer was declaring that everyone who’s been vaccinated will be subjected to 5G waves that will cause their hearts and brains to explode. 
Remember, wear your hip boots when shopping at Kroger; it’s going to get deep.