There is no doubt in my mind that the U.S. Government should receive some return on its taxpayer-funded research and development activities, especially when its discoveries, inventions, and other intellectual property enables multi-million or billion-dollar commercialization activities.

However, when such commercialization involves regulatory approvals from the organization funding and supervising the research, there is a clear and present danger of corruption that may affect the very people the product purports to help.

Therefore, I would like an impartial congressional investigation of the $400 million in royalties that Covid-19 vaccine manufacturer Moderna paid to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID), formerly headed by Dr. Anthony Fauci. As well as all similar deals involving the FDA, CDC, NIAID, and other public health entities.

MODERNA REPORTS FOURTH QUARTER AND FISCAL YEAR 2022 FINANCIAL RESULTS AND PROVIDES BUSINESS UPDATES

Cost of Sales: Cost of sales was $1.9 billion, or 39% of product sales, for the fourth quarter of 2022, including third-party royalties of $604 million, of which $400 million related to a catch-up payment to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) for a new royalty-bearing license agreement executed in December. The agreement provides for low single-digit royalties on future COVID-19 vaccine sales. Cost of sales, as a percentage of product sales, increased by 25 percentage points, from 14% in the same period in 2021. The increase was driven by increased royalties, a charge of $297 million for inventory write-downs related to COVID-19 products that have exceeded or are expected to exceed their approved shelf-lives prior to being used, a loss on firm purchase commitments and related cancellation charges of $281 million, and an expense for unutilized manufacturing capacity and related contract manufacturing organization charges of $376 million. These charges, other than royalties, are driven by costs associated with surplus production capacity, overall lower demand and a shift to our most recent Omicron-targeting COVID-19 bivalent booster, mRNA-1273.222 <Source>

[OCS: It should be noted that Moderna is facing a number of patent suits from rivals such as Pfizer, BioNTech, and Genevant Sciences. Big money is involved as Moderna is reported to have sold $36 BILLION worth of coronavirus vaccines worldwide and received at least $10 BILLION in taxpayer funding to develop and test the vaccine, and to provide doses to the federal government.] 

Moderna Shot May Cause Double To Triple As Many Heart Problems As Pfizer, New Study Finds

Moderna’s COVID-19 shot may cause two to three times as many heart-related side effects as Pfizer’s, according to a new Canadian study.

The rates of myocarditis and pericarditis in individuals within 21 days of getting their second shot were 35.6 and 22.9 per million doses, respectively, for Moderna compared to 12.6 and 9.4 per million for Pfizer, the research found. The connection between the mRNA vaccines and heart complications was most pronounced in men and younger vaccine recipients. <Source>

A question of trust…

We have a reasonable belief, including sworn testimony and documentary evidence, that the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID), Dr. Anthony Fauci, and other high-ranking public health officials, lied to the Administration, the media, and the American public.

Did Fauci and Collins Receive Royalty Payments from Drug Companies?

According to information garnered from Freedom of Information Act Requests, between 2009-2014, both Anthony Fauci and former NIH director Francis Collins received royalty payments from pharmaceutical companies. This may present a conflict of interest since they had a great deal of influence in deciding what research the government funds. From the report:

Last year, the National Institutes of Health – Anthony Fauci’s employer – doled out $30 billion in government grants to roughly 56,000 recipients. That largess of taxpayer money buys a lot of favor and clout within the scientific, research, and healthcare industries.

However, in our breaking investigation, we found hundreds of millions of dollars in payments also flow the other way. These are royalty payments from third-party payers (think pharmaceutical companies) back to the NIH and individual NIH scientists.

We estimate that between fiscal years 2010 and 2020, more than $350 million in royalties were paid by third-parties to the agency and NIH scientists – who are credited as co-inventors.  Because those payments enrich the agency and its scientists, each and every royalty payment could be a potential conflict of interest and needs disclosure.

When bench scientists’ research leads to monetized benefit in the private sector, I suppose royalties are in order. And certainly, government funding should reap benefits for the government when that investments leads to the development of profitable products. But Collins and Fauci, as far as I know, were administrators, not researchers. Yet OTB found that they received royalties from drug companies. Since the NIH documents are heavily redacted, we can only see how many payments each scientist received, and, separately, the aggregate dollars per NIH agency. This is a gatekeeping at odds with the spirit and perhaps the letter of open-records laws. <Source>

Even worse, what was the extent of the collaboration, or collusion, between Dr. Fauci and Dr. Peter Daszak, the president of EcoHealth Alliance, who helped to fund “gain of function” research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the highly suspect source of the virus resulting in a worldwide pandemic? It is no secret that they were also concurrently working on a vaccine.

Bottom line…

With billions of dollars in play and a government ripe with corruption and collusion, it is time to hold our nation’s public health administrators and those that provided political cover accountable for their actions.

A case could also be made for crimes against humanity considering the amount of death and destruction resulting from purposely hidden information and the lack of timely warnings.

And considering the billions of dollars in play, perhaps the unprecedented waiver of product liability should be modified or revoked.

We are so screwed.

-- Steve