Fauci Files: Celebrated doc's career dotted with ethics, safety controversies inside NIH

[Geee]

Just the News

Earlier this month, Dr. Anthony Fauci offered a pointed response to those who have challenged his stewardship of the pandemic as the nation's infectious disease chief: "I think you can trust me," he declared, citing his long record of service in government medicine.

That is exactly what Fauci's National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) agency declared years ago to foster children in New York, Illinois and elsewhere, many of whom were enrolled in an AIDS drug trial without the promised patient protections. An investigation concluded the NIAID's AIDS research division that reported to Fauci had failed in many cases to provide patient advocates to monitor the foster kids' health as promised, and in some cases, as required by law.

In other words, a trust was broken.

A Just the News review of three decades of Fauci's leadership of the National Institutes of Health's infectious disease arm found that while his agency has achieved many successes in the fights against AIDS and other infectious diseases it also produced several instances — like the foster children research — in which congressional, government ethics and internal watchdogs found safety or ethics lapses on his watch. They include:

• A 2004 internal NIH review that concluded Fauci's AIDS research division was a "troubled organization" where managers were creating a hostile atmosphere with "sexually explicit and colorful language" and "seemingly being unaware of the need for appropriate behavior, decorum and enforcement of good management practices and rules of supervision."