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."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2020, @05:55PM (24 children)
I guess reality is starting to sink in, now we'll get to enjoy a whole lot of "Trump? Never liked the guy. Crimes? We didn't know!!!"
Get stuffed all you MAGA turds and lame ducks who called him an idiot yet refused to acknowledge his crimes. 🎵 One of these things is quite like the other 🎵
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2020, @06:28PM (1 child)
So you would continue to fund projects, as long as they say "coronavirus", even if the recipients spend the money on hookers and blow?
I'm guessing you'd be blaming Trump anyway even if HHS did renew the grant.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2020, @08:50PM
https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/ninth-circuit-hands-trump-admin-a-big-loss-the-transfer-of-military-funds-to-build-the-wall-was-unlawful/ [lawandcrime.com]
Good thing the GOP stacked the supreme court, maybe Trump will have more luck there /s
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2020, @06:31PM (1 child)
>not seeing as many magas
almost 4 years of being banned on digital platforms and you wonder where they went?
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Saturday June 27 2020, @02:55PM
America was great when the Maga movement started.
Now we need a new Maga movement.
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2020, @06:34PM (13 children)
The corrupt machine politicians on the "opposing" team gave him the victory.
We all knew exactly what he is like, and look at what you people put up against him. Shameful! The voters are only getting what they asked for. Fuckin' up the rest of the world though, huh? So, since nobody wants to undo this, how do we contain it?
And, contrary to the headline, cutting the fundage isn't "politics", it's strictly business
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2020, @09:01PM (7 children)
And yet you voted for him in the primaries. Was he running against Hillary then ? Were all the other republican candidates worse in your eyes ?
What kind of pathetic sorry excuse will you come up with this time, fucking trumptards ?
(Score: 3, Funny) by hendrikboom on Friday June 26 2020, @10:32PM (1 child)
I get that the "trum" part of "trumptard" likely refers to the president of the united states.
But the "tard" I find a bit obscure. Is it formed from "bastard" or "retard" or maybe "leotard"?
At least "leotard" contains an allusion to a lion.
-- hendrik
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 27 2020, @12:36AM
Actually, if you combine them all together you start approaching the insanity that is the true meaning.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 27 2020, @12:09AM (3 children)
And yet you voted for him in the primaries.
Nope, not me. Again you lie, typical democrat, can't look in the mirror
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Saturday June 27 2020, @03:25AM
Good one Anonymous Coward! Really owning the libs there.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Saturday June 27 2020, @02:57PM (1 child)
Weren't some of the Republican primaries even cancelled? Or did they just refuse to let anyone run against Trump in those states? Or am I misinformed altogether?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 28 2020, @11:31PM
Not enough people care to do anything about it.
But many of the democrat primaries are setting up nicely. Goes to show the voters do shape the party in their image, consciously or not.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 27 2020, @05:40AM
And exactly who would you have voted for in the primaries?
Get some other loser Republocrook that cant even beat the criminally insane Hillary?
(Score: 4, Touché) by PartTimeZombie on Saturday June 27 2020, @03:27AM (4 children)
Jesus that's stupid.
"Oh look, they've nominated Hillary, she's terrible. I know, let's nominate someone even worse. That'll show 'em.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 27 2020, @04:25AM
Biden Biden Bi... *cry*
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 27 2020, @07:59AM (2 children)
DNC/GOP doesn't care between Clinton and Trump. Only the deluded voters fantasize about a difference. 40 years of grooming made Trump inevitable. And people think that reelecting them again will fix everything. Strange what you consider "stupid".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 27 2020, @02:06PM (1 child)
There seem to be very rich, powerful and influential people that feel there is a difference. They are spending a lot of money to wreaking a lot of destruction to punish the deluded voters for having elected Trump.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 27 2020, @08:35PM
Please... It's entertainment, to keep minds from wandering off the DNC/GOP plantation. They only want to set the clock back, help people forget, so reelection rates remain in the 90% range.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2020, @06:40PM (3 children)
I'm thinking the left should take MAGA, as in:
"After 4 years of Trump we need to Make America Great Again!"
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2020, @07:04PM
Making the world safe again for the CIA, FBI and NSA to run roughshod over you and elected government. It would stop the media onslaught on Trump and Covid-19 would suddenly be not a threat anymore! 👍
(Score: 2) by tizan on Saturday June 27 2020, @02:24AM (1 child)
Slightly tangential ....
what left ?
We have middle right and extreme right.
Ocasio Cortez and Sanders does not make a whole left party
Middle will be like Germany or France.
Middle left I can think of is Uruguay.
Russia is no longer left it is a monarchy like Saudi arabia...you get favors at the will of the leader.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 27 2020, @04:27AM
Pendulum meet swing. Hold onto your fucking glasses!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2020, @07:23PM
Every single MAGA reply is from AC. Good, the shame is settling back in, they thought Trump meant they could tell everyone how they really felt and everything would be OK. Now they realize Trump was full of shit and their hateful ideologies are more reviled than ever! Bunch of reputation managers here lol
Keep it classy bois.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 27 2020, @05:45AM
And if Trump is a criminal, what politician is not a criminal? Name One?
Perhaps you would say Sanders .. but when he first supported Hillary and then Biden
that is pretty pathetic.
They all need to go Republocrook and Democrook ...
Also Fauci is in bed with Bill Gates ... and we are supposed to believe him?
Anyone associated with Gates need to go to prison with Gates ....
(Score: 2) by Mojibake Tengu on Friday June 26 2020, @06:00PM (3 children)
In current situation, the most politically (and, consequently, strategically) dangerous possible result of said research would be they don't.
Respect Authorities. Know your social status. Woke responsibly.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2020, @06:16PM (1 child)
Oh boy would that be something, but at least some crazies could feel safer as they eat all that crow.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Saturday June 27 2020, @03:00PM
But does it jump from crows to humans?
(Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Friday June 26 2020, @06:32PM
Already happened and proven in 2012. SARs [wikipedia.org], another corona virus, was confirmed to have come from a bat.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 5, Interesting) by ilsa on Friday June 26 2020, @06:38PM (8 children)
> 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.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2020, @07:07PM (6 children)
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)
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
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)
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.
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.
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
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)
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
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.
Aside from creating stuff like Facebook and Twitter, I suppose.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 28 2020, @09:26AM
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.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2020, @06:55PM (1 child)
It takes too long to look for babies!
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Sunday June 28 2020, @02:56AM
Let God sort it out.
(Score: 2, Troll) by HiThere on Friday June 26 2020, @07:06PM (2 children)
Yes, it was research into the origin of COVID-19, and would be useful to various specialists, but China was where that research was being (had to be) done.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2020, @07:59PM (1 child)
And now, when that research is published from China, the US has no independent research to corroborate or refute that evidence. In other words, once again it has placed itself at the mercy of the Chinese.
(Score: 2) by PocketSizeSUn on Sunday June 28 2020, @06:05PM
The NIH research in question was being done in the WIV lab in Wuhan China.
There is none, and never was any: US independent research to corroborate or refute.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Improbus on Friday June 26 2020, @07:07PM (4 children)
We don't care about you. Just die! TRUMP 2020! </sarcasm>
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 27 2020, @03:38AM (1 child)
I find it fairly amazing how anybody could support a lunatic trying to kill them for president.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 27 2020, @11:18AM
It's easy. You just have to believe he'll kill the other side more.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday June 27 2020, @04:33AM (1 child)
Now do you thick-skulled dipshits understand why some people, for some mysterious reason, are skeptical of the Big COVID Jerk-Around?!
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 27 2020, @05:01AM
Nope, totally understood from the very beginning when you morons were telling us why you are morons.
We get it, wearing masks and not socializing as closely is the worst oppression ever. Thanks for sharing your big brain thoughts with the class.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by maxwell demon on Friday June 26 2020, @10:56PM (1 child)
Apparently the dept. line was also cancelled. :-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 27 2020, @02:23AM
The Dept. line was part of the ACA, and is no longer covered as a pre-exiting British condition. Move along. Nothing to see here. Quilt literally.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 27 2020, @02:08AM (7 children)
Can studying bats with Corona viruses potentially expose the scientists to Corona viruses and then the scientists could spread the virus more?
Is it possible the scientists that were studying the bats in China got the virus themselves from the bats and spread it?
Is it wise to allow such research being that the research itself could be a potential vector of infection?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 27 2020, @04:24AM (5 children)
That is one of the leading theories, but it is missing the critical element: Criminally irresponsible mishandling of containment procedures. The Wuhan Institute of Virology was specifically called out for that by the US State Dept.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 27 2020, @04:32AM
By Golly you've nailed it! It was the Chinese all along. The Prrrresident was right. We must tell the voters.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 27 2020, @04:45AM (3 children)
(same poster that you are responding to)
Well, no one really knows if it's the researchers that got the virus from the bats and spread it or not. I don't expect China to ever admit such a thing so no one will ever know. We can only guess and my guess is as good as anyone else's.
But the fact of the matter is that life is messy and things happen. Researching an infectious agent increases the possibility of you getting exposed to, infected by, and spreading such an agent.
(Score: 2) by PocketSizeSUn on Sunday June 28 2020, @06:10PM (2 children)
Regards of the reality of what actually happened ...
When you include the early destruction of data and lab samples along with the panic shutdown of Wuhan we can infer with a high degree of probability that that is what the CCP thought happened.
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Sunday June 28 2020, @09:27PM (1 child)
If what you write is true, it doesn't mean that Cov-SARS-2 was first found in the lab: only that the Chinese authorities had a credible belief that it might have been, as you wrote: "thought happened". The first instinct may well have been to suppress the information and 'ride out the storm' on the basis of wiping out the population of one of your own cities was better than being blamed for the man-made creation of a global pandemic. The Soviet Union hushed up many accidents, and military accidents have been kept secret by all the major (and minor) powers. I wouldn't regard aiming to keep things secret as evidence of guilt - simply evidence that the authorities thought the events could have been self-inflicted.
(Score: 2) by PocketSizeSUn on Saturday July 11 2020, @07:04PM
I guess we will have to agree to disagree because I find it to be compelling evidence that there is more going on the WIV BSL4 lab than the open research in contrast to what has be public stated.
If NIH funds were being used to advance non-shared research that is very probably advancing a military research project combined with Xi's shift to an expansionist footing is simply absurd.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Saturday June 27 2020, @12:26PM
Of course, yes. Let us keep in mind that even if COVID-19 came from a research lab, that wouldn't require the Chinese authorities to suppress for a month information about its spread in Wuhan. There are true acts of foolish that remain so no matter where the disease originated.
I could see extremely dangerous agents developed that would be too dangerous to develop on Earth, much less an urban environment, due to this sort of risk, but coronavirus wasn't one of those things.