let the sunshine into the NIH
even if it burns it down
NIH is corrupt and self serving. This must change, but how can this be accomplished? -it just never stops, does it? these federal fiefdoms ignore every rule in the book, color way outside the lines, move the the hotwiring of viruses offshore when it gets too dicey to do it in the US, and then lie about every last bit of what was done in a festival of gaslighting that would have made geobbels blush.
and nothing happens to them.
no rules apply.
15,000 samples. 700 coronaviruses. witness the quivering outrage of ecohealth head daszak about his research being cut off (and the move to gmail and off the official emails so they can escape further FOIA).
this man was actually indignant about his research getting shut down. this is april of 2020, long after he knew damn well there had been a lab leak and covid-19 was his fault.
and all he cares about are the samples.
the agency focus moves to “damage control” and “CYA.” (morens was senior advisor to NIAID director fauci)
these guys game every system, every rule, and every ethical constraint.
then you ask some questions and suddenly “oh we have rules against answering that!” but this is inversion. it’s just “rules for thee but not for me” privilege being invoked with the flimsiest of pretext.
it’s a cabal circling the wagons.
the NIH is refusing to comply with @ZackStieber’s FOI request on the money they were paid for providing the genetic payloads for the mRNA vaxxes.
they are claiming exemption for trade secrets which is utterly ridiculous. this is about money.
the NIH was paid at least $400 million by moderna.
they seem to be owed quite a lot more including from bioNtech who also licensed the tech then licensed it to pfizer and who look to be stiffing the feds. (this all came out in an SEC filing)
so let’s recap:
NIH used taxpayer money to illegally fund gain of function on coronaviruses.
they created covid 19 then lied about it.
because they did, they also had the genetic code and a dodgy mRNA vaxx blueprint lying around
they licensed it at “warp speed” to moderna and bioNtech which is how these products got to market so quickly
they received large royalties for this and many of those royalties likely went to individual NIH staffers
those staffers do not even need to disclose what they got. there is no rule or regulation requiring it.
and now, when asked under FOIA to share the contracts, they are flatly refusing to let any sunshine whatsoever anywhere near this issue.
it’s a millimeter level map of where the treasure is buried.
these sorts of exemptions are often used to protect “trade secrets” like chemical compositions, non-patented processes, and other such competitively sensitive forms of commercial art. but this is none of that. this is about money paid to a federal agency and its employees.
it’s not classified. there is no profound business rationale for failing to disclose. this is the business of we the people created with our money, funded by grants with our money, and then paid back in royalties that went to agency and agents alike in unspecified fashion as those who made the rules and recommendations around a deeply dangerous experimental product alleged to mitigate the effects of the NIH’s previous experiment escape scrutiny.
those who made the mess were not only allowed to develop and advocate for a janky jab that made the whole thing worse, but they got buckets of cash for it. even daszak and his merry band of virology villains got shiny new sinecures and posts as “official fox to watch the henhouse.”
the “sunshine act” requires pharma sales people to disclose a ham sandwich that they bought for a doctor. yet somehow, these 9 or 10 figure dealings are simply opaque and no business of we the people?
no.
the word “egregious” seems altogether inadequate to describe this state of affairs.
if some group in syria had done this, we’d brand them a terrorist organization. we’d invade the country that sheltered them and carpet bomb them to the stone age. regimes would be overthrown. we’ve done a helluva lot more on a on a helluva lot less evidence.
but instead, this internal “rogue deep state” gets the wagons circled around it. this is not democracy. it’s not a republic. it’s not accountable government. this is plutocratic bureaucracy.
laugh if you like, but this meme is not a joke:
we just keep doing this, over and over. we all just sort of look at them like “oh, you scamp!” and then go back to life as before.
this isn’t even 20 years ago. it’s 4.
and already the most outlandish intrusion into lives and liberties in modern memory is just “old news” or “cheeky misbehavior”?
what’s a few hundred million between friends?
are we to somehow accept this as within the bounds of acceptable federal peccadillo?
are we seriously that out of outrage?
this is not a solution.
and we need better.
the simple, inescapable fact is this:
if we in this nation cannot muster the political will to crack this all open, expose every last bit, every sin, every shekel, and every subterfuge and then demolish once and for all this debauched conflict of interest conflagration masquerading as public health as we inject some actual accountability and consequence, then our form of government has failed and its time we admitted as much and looked once more to the profound insights of our founders.
they are no less true today.
probably, they are more so.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness
a government that does not preserve the rights of its people but rather that shields its own agents against its citizenry as they trample upon them for power and profit is no government at all. it lacks any claim to just powers. and this is intolerable.
quartering soldiers in our homes would be a speed bump compared to this.
a regulatory and security state of the size of today’s leviathan is simply incompatible with the rights of a free people. it is and always will be its own constituency.
there is no other outcome, no better or smarter or wiser people next time to “do it correctly.”
it will always be corrupt.
perhaps abolishing all these letter agencies will not entirely solve the problem.
but it’s a start.
the simple fact is that no federal agency that cannot withstand the sunshine being let in should be allowed to persist.
this seems a basic claim that should be so uncontroversial that even having to make it feels absurd.
if it’s all or mostly on the up and up, cool, sunshine will restore confidence.
and if it’s a bit dodgy and we need to cut come cancer out, then sunshine is the friend of reform.
but it seems like what people fear is that it’s so corrupt and compromised and disgusting that there is nothing left to save and that the sunlight would raze the NIH to the ground.
well, if this is so, then the sooner the better.
the case for “too awful to allow to be assessed” seems like a loser for everyone but the grifters.
it’s not going to get better by itself.
“your terms are acceptable.”
