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posted by Fnord666 on Friday June 26 2020, @04:44PM   Printer-friendly

White House ordered NIH to cancel coronavirus research funding, Fauci says:

The National Institutes of Health abruptly cut off funding to a long-standing, well-regarded research project on bat coronaviruses only after the White House specifically told it to do so, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Fauci made the revelation Tuesday at a Congressional hearing on the federal response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which is caused by a coronavirus that is genetically linked to those found in bats. Rep. Marc Veasey (D-Texas) asked Fauci why the NIH abruptly canceled funding for the project, which specifically worked to understand the risk of bat coronaviruses jumping to humans and causing devastating disease.

Fauci responded to Veasey saying: "It was cancelled because the NIH was told to cancel it."

"And why were they told to cancel it?" Veasey pressed.

"I don't know the reason, but we were told to cancel it," Fauci said.

After the hearing, Fauci clarified to Politico that it was the White House that told the NIH to cancel the funding. An unnamed White House official told Politico that the White House did encourage the funding cut, but ultimately it was the Department of Health and Human Services—of which the NIH is a part—that made the final decision. An HHS spokesperson said only that the funding was cut because "the grantee was not in compliance with NIH's grant policy."

In an emailed statement to Ars Wednesday, the NIH did not respond to questions about the cancellation, saying only that "NIH does not discuss internal deliberations on grant terminations."


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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by ilsa on Friday June 26 2020, @06:38PM (8 children)

    by ilsa (6082) Subscriber Badge on Friday June 26 2020, @06:38PM (#1012940)

    > An unnamed White House official told Politico that the White House did encourage the funding cut,

    Wow, I'm shocked... SHOCKED that the white house would demand the NIH cut a critical program and then try to weasel their way out of responsibility.

    God the US is such a shit show. I'm so glad I'm not American. At this point it seems like a civil war is the best outcome you guys can hope for.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2020, @07:07PM (6 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2020, @07:07PM (#1012950)

    At this point it seems like a civil war is the best outcome you guys can hope for.

    If you're not Russian, Chinese, or owned by them, you are chained to us, whichever way we go.

    I guess your country is a US vassal, since you profess a strong opinion about US politics, a country objectively foreign to you.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by ilsa on Friday June 26 2020, @08:46PM (5 children)

      by ilsa (6082) Subscriber Badge on Friday June 26 2020, @08:46PM (#1012983)

      Literally every country on the planet is effectively a vassal state thanks to America's abusive foreign policy. We have no power over the USA but we're forced to accept whatever idiocy comes from it. The same is true for Russia and China, but the influence of any particular one varies depending on relative location.

      The world is now basically stuck in a three ring circus between USA, Russian, and China, hoping we can survive the fallout from your collective machinations, but so far it sure feels like the USA is edging out the other two by it's sheer incompetence.

      I'm tired of having to go out of my way just to find local news because nobody can turn their eyes away from the never ending trainwreck that is the US.

      • (Score: 2) by krishnoid on Friday June 26 2020, @08:49PM

        by krishnoid (1156) on Friday June 26 2020, @08:49PM (#1012987)

        No hard power, no, but you can always try manipulating US social media. Why should that be restricted to just Russia and China? Get in on some of that action yourself. I hear the president uses a Twitter a lot, so you could get a bunch of other pissed-off countries and start there.

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2020, @10:46PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2020, @10:46PM (#1013018)

        I'm tired of having to go out of my way just to find local news

        And why do you think that is? Because your country's media is disseminating a US soap opera to keep its citizens in the dark about what is wrong in *your* country.

        We have no power over the USA but we're forced to accept whatever idiocy comes from it.

        It hasn't been 20 years since Gerhard Schröder told Baby Bush to shove his "coalition of the willing" where the sun doesn't shine. Your country would have power, should you decide to use it. But you don't, you take the easy way and just back off if the US toughens the terms. "Fingerprint everyone for passports, or we'll demand visas!" - "Yes, massa!". "Extradite your citizens to us on demand!" - "Yes, massa!" "That gas pipeline you built with Russia, we're going to sanction your companies that worked on it!" - "Sorry, massa!"

        Is it any wonder US politicians, Democrat and Republicans, hold European countries in low regard?

        Of course, given Snowden's revelations, the US likely has so much compromising information and access on European politicians, they can't keep their toilet paper brand a secret anymore.

        The world is now basically stuck in a three ring circus between USA, Russian, and China

        Back when it was a two ring circus, Europeans were more gutsy about defending their interests.

        • (Score: 1) by pTamok on Sunday June 28 2020, @12:43PM

          by pTamok (3042) on Sunday June 28 2020, @12:43PM (#1013640)

          Back when it was a two ring circus, Europeans were more gutsy about defending their interests.

          It's worth pointing out that European interests are not identical to USAian interests. The main power bloc in Europe (the European Union) is not a single nation, and has to accommodate competing national interests, which is does relatively successfully, by having common economic interests. If you comply with the rules to trade within the single market, you get significant advantages: as the British are going to painfully find out. The EU does not need to threaten war when economic sanctions work well enough for now.

          On a geopolitical front, things will get interesting if/when the rules changes and the EU decides it will entertain membership requests from North African countries, like Tunisia and Algeria. Making compliance with the common regulations (which have far-reaching consequences) a precondition of joining has a greater effect than the foreign-policy-of-the-day emanating from the USA. Similarly both Georgia (the country) and Ukraine are keen on joining. In Georgia, at the last poll 83% were in favour of joining, and in Ukraine 68.1%. (See: Wikipedia: Future enlargement of the European Union [wikipedia.org]In contrast, there are not a lot of countries wishing to subsume themselves into China or the USA.

          European and USAian interests sometimes coincide, but they are by no means identical.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 27 2020, @05:50AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 27 2020, @05:50AM (#1013158)

        How can you say that?

        The good ol' USA has industries like well ..... Facebook and Twitter ... Look how high
        their stock is ....

        Trainwreck is possibly understating the condition.

        And worst of all, the US public is to stupid/lazy/fat/etc. to do anything about it ....

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday June 27 2020, @12:14PM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday June 27 2020, @12:14PM (#1013209) Journal

          The good ol' USA has industries like well ..... Facebook and Twitter ... Look how high their stock is ....

          Depends what "industries" means. I get you're trying to be sarcastic, but the US's ability to create and grow such human industry from scratch is one of the reasons the US is doing well these days.

          And worst of all, the US public is to stupid/lazy/fat/etc. to do anything about it ....

          Aside from creating stuff like Facebook and Twitter, I suppose.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 28 2020, @09:26AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 28 2020, @09:26AM (#1013613)

    Secession could be negotiated during it, but would never pass on its own because Congress plus the state legislature both have to agree to it. Civil War is unlikely before a second Depression happens, and even if it does, modern surveillance technology will no doubt see it quashed and the same simmering tensions that the surrender of the Confederacy lead to in the past century.

    The values that Americans believe in now need to be refreshed, whether that means simple taking each statement from the Constitution and arguing over it until everybody agrees that those are the values and principles this country lives by, or deciding that they need to be clarified/updated to fit the modern world. Anything less will have little or no impact on the status quo.