Government-paid scientists, as a result of their research, experiments, and testing, sometimes end up with a product or procedure that has commercial value to corporations.
So the companies buy a license from the government to use it, and some of that money is returned to individuals, like Anthony Fauci, as compensation that is above and beyond their sometimes-luxurious federal salaries.
Now a government watchdog is demanding now to see who got how much of that money.
The fight has involved Judicial Watch, which has filed a post-hearing brief in a lawsuit on behalf of Open the Books that urges a federal court to order the National Institutes of Health to release records showing those payments that have funded individuals “including former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci.”
“As they say, follow the money. That’s what we’re doing with government employees making decisions about your health. We want to see how much private companies pay federal health bureaucrats, but they’re fighting back,” Judicial Watch reported.
The legal dispute started in 2021 with a Freedom of Information Act case calling for full disclosure of NIH “Inventor Award” payments.
Judicial Watch contends NIH improperly withheld information that the public should see “based on speculative claims that disclosure could allow outsiders to ‘back-calculate’ confidential royalty payments made by private industry to the government.”
Recently, NIH witnesses tried to justify keeping the records secret by saying releasing inventor payment amounts could reveal private-sector royalty rates.
Judicial Watch, however, says that’s based on hypotheticals, not actual data.
“Of the 59,000 instances in which NIH redacted Inventor Awards … it did not back calculate a royalty payment from a single award,” the watchdog charged.
Judicial Watch noted, “We argue that there are too many unknowns and moving parts for anyone to reliably ‘work backwards’ to those private payments. The system is too complicated to figure out how much private companies paid the government just by looking at what scientists were later paid – or to guess:”
The watchdog said what would be correct is to release the “unredacted NIH ‘Inventor Award’ records.”
It explained, “Judicial Watch and Open the Books already forced disclosure of more than $1 billion in NIH royalty payments marked to inventors, like Fauci. It is head-scratching that HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would allow this stubborn and unlawful secrecy to continue about payments to Fauci and others.”
Open the Books chief John Hart said, “Every taxpayer deserves to understand how private payments may impact decision making among public scientists and agency directors. Equally important, they are patients making some of life’s most personal decisions when it comes to health care. They are entitled to understand all the financial stakes in play as they receive guidance from public health officials.”
The report said what is known is that nearly $2.7 billion was paid to NIH institutes or scientists, including more than $1 billion marked for “inventors.” The pay to individuals can reach into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
