Tag: NIH

House Republicans Raise Alarm over China’s Potential Use of U.S. Funds in Military Research

Just the News
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers

House Republicans are urging the Government Accountability Office, Congress’s nonpartisan watchdog, to investigate what safeguards the National Institutes of Health has in place to ensure China does not use research funds to bolster its military or unethically use humans in research studies.

“Recent reports have raised concerns about the NIH’s ability to screen for national security issues,” the Republicans, led by House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Wa., wrote in a letter Tuesday to Government Accountability Office Comptroller Gene Dodaro.

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Documents: FDA, CDC Could Soon Employ ‘Indigenous Knowledge’

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Scientist in Lab

The Biden Administration’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) could soon employ the use of so-called “indigenous knowledge” in research efforts going forward, according to internal documents.

According to the Washington Free Beacon, the document in question is a planned revision of scientific integrity guidelines within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which includes such agencies as the FDA, the CDC, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The document calls for all agencies to utilize “multiple forms of evidence, such as indigenous knowledge,” when conducting research.

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NIH-Funded Research Collaborative Redacts Emails on Why It Disavowed ‘Gold Standard’ Mask Study

Just the News

As public and private institutions resume or consider mask mandates in the wake of a small uptick in COVID-19 hospitalizations and new viral variants, an international research collaborative funded by the National Institutes of Health is facing new scrutiny for how it came to publicly downplay its 17 years of research finding that masks make “little to no difference.”

U.K-based nonprofit Cochrane, often described as the “gold standard” of evidence-based medicine, heavily redacted its internal discussions on how to respond to questions about alleged conflicts of interest that may have shaped its March statement deeming the systematic review’s results “inconclusive” without changing its content.

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Vanderbilt Researchers Granted NIH Funds to Study Children’s Mental Health

Peter D'Abrosca

Researchers at Vanderbilt University have been granted $3.2 million from the National Institute of Health (NIH) to research children’s mental health, according to the university. 

“A four-year, $3.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health will support the research of Carolyn Heinrich, University Distinguished Professor of Leadership, Policy and Organizations, and Melinda Buntin, University Distinguished Professor of Health Policy, into how school-based health interventions affect children’s mental health and education outcomes,” Vanderbilt announced last month. “Schools are serving children with ever-increasing mental health needs, which were amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic. U.S. public schools serve as the primary entry point to mental health services for children, and school-based health centers, or SBHCs, increasingly are a ‘medical home’ for vulnerable children.”

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Senator Joni Ernst Commentary: EcoHealth Can’t Be Trusted with Taxpayer Money – or Bats

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Nearly two years ago, I requested an investigation by the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) into EcoHealth Alliance —the shady organization that funneled taxpayer money into China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) to conduct risky research on coronaviruses.

The investigation came after we learned that EcoHealth was spending our tax dollars on dangerous experiments in Wuhan, China, and was not disclosing information about those projects to the public, as required by law.

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Nation Health Agency Spends Millions on Equity, LGBT Issues Instead of Researching Cures

The Center Square

Congress’ recent $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill increased the budget for medical research funding at the National Institutes of Health to nearly $50 billion in 2023 alone. A closer look at the agency reveals that NIH is increasingly spending its time, and funds, on equity and LGBT issues as well as “systemic racism and inequities.”

The National Institutes of Health has devoted millions of taxpayer dollars toward these kinds of issues for their research, taxpayer money that did not go to the federal health agency’s primary research goal of finding cures and medical treatments.

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Commentary: GOP Must Promise Inquisitions, Not Meaningless Task Forces

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Ginni Thomas and Mark Meadows

Using the pretext of the so-called insurrection on January 6, 2021, the long knives are out for Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Post-election text exchanges between Mrs. Thomas and Mark Meadows, President Trump’s chief-of-staff, recently were leaked by the January 6 select committee to none other than the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward, who darkly described the communications as proof that “Ginni Thomas used her access to Trump’s inner circle to promote and seek to guide the president’s strategy to overturn the election result.”

The small cache of texts—29 total—shows Thomas expressing frustration at the election’s outcome. There is nothing sinister, and certainly nothing criminal, about the messages.

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FDA Cites Non-Peer Reviewed Study to Revoke Monoclonal Antibody Authorization

Peter D'Abrosca

As reported Tuesday by The Florida Capital Star, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) revoked the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for monoclonal antibodies as a treatment for COVID-19, but did not provide the data is cited in making its decision. 

Without the help of the FDA, which did not return a follow up comment request Wednesday, The Star was able to locate what appears to be the data used in the decision-making process. It is on the website for the National Institute of Health (NIH), which is headed by Dr. Anthony Fauci. 

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NIH Declines to Comment About Availability of Pfizer’s Fully FDA Approved Vaccine

Peter D'Abrosca

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Thursday declined to comment recently revealed revelations that Pfizer is not currently shipping its fully Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved vaccine called Comirnaty in the United States.

Instead, Pfizer continues to ship – and healthcare providers continue to distribute – the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine, which has only received Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) approval from the FDA. 

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‘They Have No Shame’: National Institutes of Health Doubles Down, Says It Didn’t Fund Gain of Function Research after Releasing Documents That Suggest Otherwise

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Lawrence Tabak

The National Institutes of Health reiterated its stance Thursday that it did not fund gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China, despite having released documents on Wednesday showing that it funded the creation of a lab-made SARS coronavirus that was more deadly and pathogenetic towards mice with humanized cells.

EcoHealth Alliance informed the NIH in August that its lab-created rWIV1-SHC014 S coronavirus killed 75% of mice with humanized cells, while the natural WIV1 virus it was based on killed less than 25% of mice with the same humanized cells. The experiments were conducted with the Wuhan Institute of Virology between June 2018 and May 2019.

“These results suggest that the pathogenicity of SHC014 is higher than other tested bat SARSr-CoVs in transgenic mice that express hACE2,” EcoHealth Alliance told the NIH in its progress report.

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ASU Professor Says Parents Should Lose Veto Power Over Children’s Transgender Medical Decisions

Corinne Murdock

An Arizona State University (ASU) professor asserts that parents shouldn’t have a say when it comes to their children’s transgender medical decisions. These sentiments appeared in an article by ASU assistant philosophy professor and bioethicist Maura Priest, published early last month by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Priest argues that only the child can decide what’s best for them when it comes to medical treatments for transitioning genders. 

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U.S. Group Connected to Wuhan Lab Is Stonewalling Congressional Investigation of Pandemic Origins, Committee Ranking Member Says

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COVID-19

Months after its initial requests, a congressional committee investigating COVID-19’s origins is still awaiting answers from a U.S.-funded group that worked with a Wuhan lab considered a possible origin of COVID-19.

Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee requested EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak answer questions about his group’s work with the Wuhan lab in a letter on April 16, and have still received no response, a committee aide confirmed Thursday.

Only the chair of the committee, Democrat Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr., of New Jersey, can use subpoena power to require a witness’ attendance, testimony and related documents.

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WHO Team Investigating Pandemic’s Origins Must Have Better Access, Officials and Scientists Say

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Francis Collins

The next phase of the World Health Organization (WHO) investigation into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic must be more scientific and data-driven, a group of scientists wrote in an open letter to the WHO on Friday.

China should not be permitted to veto the team members chosen for the next WHO-led investigation and the team should be granted full access to related data such as medical records and biological samples, signers of the letter wrote.

The letter is authored by various international scientists and academics and co-organized by Jamie Metzl, a WHO advisor and senior fellow at the Atlantic Council think tank.

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US Grant to Wuhan Lab to Enhance Bat-Based Coronaviruses Was Never Scrutinized by HHS Review Board, NIH Says

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An oversight board created to scrutinize research that would enhance highly dangerous pathogens did not review a National Institutes of Health grant that funded a lab in Wuhan, China, to genetically modify bat-based coronaviruses.

Experts say the NIH grant describes scientists conducting gain-of-function research, a risky area of study that, in this case, made SARS-like viruses even more contagious. Federal funding for gain-of-function research was temporarily suspended in 2014 due to widespread scientific concerns it risked leaking supercharged viruses into the human population.

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DeWine on Bill to Strike Down State of Emergency: ‘No! I Certainly Do Not Support That – We Have an Emergency’

Jack Windsor

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine said during a press conference on September 17 he would not support a bill drafted by Ohio state Representative Diane Grendell (R-Chesterland). The legislation, “Restore Ohio Now”, seeks to cancel the state of emergency declared  on March 9 – consequently making impotent COVID orders made enforceable because of the emergency.

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NIH: Halted Vaccine Study Shows ‘No Compromises’ on Safety

The Associated Press

The suspension of a huge COVID-19 vaccine study over an illness in a single participant shows there will be “no compromises” on safety in the race to develop the shot, the chief of the National Institutes of Health told Congress on Wednesday.
AstraZeneca has put on hold studies of its vaccine candidate in the U.S. and other countries while it investigates whether a British volunteer’s illness is a side effect or a coincidence.

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Minnesota Lifts Statewide Ban on Hydroxychloroquine

Corinne Murdock

Governor Walz lifted the restrictions on access to hydroxychloroquine, a drug that has been in use for decades to treat a wide variety of illnesses – including SARS-type infections – that some say may be an effective therapeutic for COVID-19. The removal of limitations on the drug were outlined in Walz’s latest executive order issued last week.

Walz did not give an explanation for the reversal of his order on the drug.

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Millions of Potential Coronavirus Vaccine Doses Already Being Made, NIH Director Says

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Millions of coronavirus vaccine doses are being manufactured, even before testing has been completed, the National Institutes of Health director said in an interview recently.

Doses of potential vaccines are being made to shorten the time it traditionally takes to develop a drug for public use, director Dr. Francis Collins told Intelligencer. Collins said he is “guardedly optimistic” that at least one vaccine will pass through the large phase of trials by December.

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Commentary: Progressive Woke Orthodoxy Obscures the Truth About the Virus

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Americans are acquainted with predictable but ultimately failed progressive efforts to suppress free expression by preemptive invective and politically correct finger-pointing.

To believe that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s accusers revealed too many contradictions, too many lacunae, too many episodes of timely amnesia, and too many unsubstantiated accusations in their testimonies was chauvinistically to attack/smear/silence all women’s voices – at least until the same sort of memory-repressed accusations focused on handsy Joe Biden.

To express skepticism that current global temperatures are uniformly rising almost entirely due to human carbon emissions, that this state of affairs poses catastrophic dangers that may end civilization as we know it, and that this emergency can only be addressed by the radical restructuring of global economies is to be rendered a denialist, a crank, a fool.

But these parameters of censorship have a logic and predictability, given their race/class/gender/environmental orthodoxy.

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