NIH employees receiving secret kickback royalties, alleges report

A report published by a government watchdog group Monday alleges that employees of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), who include Dr. Anthony Fauci, are receiving secret kickbacks in royalty payments, which could constitute a severe conflict of interest. 

The report by OpentheBooks.com found that of the $30 billion paid by the NIH last year in grants to third parties, third parties also paid certain NIH scientists for being “co-inventors”. While it is yet unclear who the third parties are or whether they are pharmaceutical corporations, an estimated $350 million was paid to NIH employees between 2010 and 2020. 

By filing a lawsuit against the NIH, OpentheBooks.com learned that the agency reportedly has 3,000 pages worth of line-by-line payments paid out to its scientists since 2009. However, the NIH has been dragging its feet in disclosing its records, only producing 1,200 pages so far, covering the period of 2009-2014. 

Those pages reveal that in that five-year time period, there were 22,100 royalty payments made to nearly 1,700 NIH scientists, totaling an estimated $134 million. 

23 royalty payments went to Fauci, 14 went to former NIH Director Francis Collins, and 8 went to Fauci’s deputy, Clifford Lane, among others. 

The NIH has redacted much of the information, including payment amounts and the reasons for the payments, showing only the number of payments and the names of the scientists.  

The NIH purposefully released the oldest royalties first, and will be releasing, under court order, 300 more each month, covering the period 2015-2020. 

In 2009, the Associated Press learned via FOIA request that over 900 scientists at the NIH had been receiving royalty payments for inventions or drugs that they were working on, totaling $8.9 million in 2004 alone. 

Fauci himself received $45,072.82 between 1997 and 2004 for an experimental AIDS treatment which the NIH funded with $36 million. 

"When a doctor says, 'Here, try this experiment, it is safe, or it will help,' and the patient isn't aware he has a financial interest in the outcome of that treatment, it in essence is taking advantage of someone by not letting them have all the information," said Bill Allison of the Center for Public Integrity. 

Anthony Fauci is currently the highest-paid employee in the U.S. government, out-earning Joe Biden. He has received generous pay hikes to conduct “biodefense research” - in other words, to prevent pandemics.