Undisclosed royalty payments estimated at $350 million from pharmaceutical and other firms to Dr. Anthony Fauci and hundreds of National Institutes for Health (NIH) scientists do present “an appearance of a conflict of interest,” according to the agency’s acting director.
Dr. Lawrence Tabak, who took over as NIH Director following the December 2021 resignation of the agency’s long-time leader, Dr. Francis Collins, told a House Appropriations Committee subcommittee that federal law allows the royalty payments but he conceded they don’t look ethical.
Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.) told Tabak that “right now, I think the NIH has a credibility problem and this only feeds into this, and I’m only just learning about this. People in my district say ‘well, so-and-so has a financial interest, or they don’t like Ivermectin because they aren’t benefitting from that royalty …
…