Siphoning Money from the NIH

It’s almost too brazen to believe — last week in secret, Jay Bhattacharya and Robert Kadlec signed an agreement facilitating “the transfer of funds from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to the Office of the Assistant Secretary of War (OASW).” The agreement puts the OASW in charge of the NIH essentially, giving them the ability to “award contracts, grants, and other transactions” using NIH funds. It is a 10-year agreement, expiring in 2036.

• Pointing quickly to the fact that there is no “Department of War” except in the desperately faux-masculine imaginations of various FOX News-addled frauds, we move on.

While reporting in Nature quoted Department of Defense (DOD) employees as saying this was only a project-by-project agreement, is gives the impression the OASW could be considered to be in charge of the size and frequency of project funding awards.

Can two government agencies contract with one another to siphon funds allocated by Congress to one and transfer them to another?

The target money Kadlec has in mind is from NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a branch strongly associated with Anthony Fauci, adding a vindictive trolling aspect to the whole sordid affair.

According to sources, Kadlec has been pushing to finalize the deal under a broader bio-defense initiative dubbed “Operation Prevailing Edge.” He initially sought $1.9 billion, roughly one-third of the NIAID’s US$6.6 billion annual budget. Facing pushback, he’s now focused on transferring $700 million from NIAID to military entities, with annual transfers likely scaling up over the agreement’s decade-long lifespan.

• Meanwhile, HHS was making news that led to this headline:
  • “HHS Cancels Infant Mortality, Postpartum Grants to Focus on Sperm Counts, ED”

Like everyone else in HHS these days, Kadlec is an odd duck. An Air Force physician, he has been in government since 2007, and led Operation Warp Speed for vaccine deployment during the Covid-19 pandemic. However, he was also the subject of a whistleblower lawsuit with retaliation aspects when it was alleged he refused to limit responses to proven and safe responses to Covid-19, allowing hydroxychloroquine and other alternatives to be pushed, while also being slow to order masks, testing kits, and swabs. It was ultimately found that his ouster of the whistleblower (Rick Bright) showed a “substantial likelihood of wrongdoing.”

Bhattacharya is also an odd duck, as we all know.

Both men are in their positions due to Covid-19 and their roles in response to it. Neither was a shining example, but Kadlec has one redeeming feature — he didn’t completely screw up. He only screwed up a little.

The agreement has not been shared with member of Congress. It was discovered just before Labor Day weekend, where news goes to die.

Will this provoke a response from Congress? Don’t bet on it. Congress is adjourned for most of September, mid-term elections are coming, and nobody is going to stick their neck out for science in a way that might look anti-military in the coming weeks.

Bhattacharya may be a toady and farce, but he knows how to manipulate the system.

In a potentially related development, RFK, Jr., hired an Army doctor with no specialized training in vaccines or viruses who once compared immunizing service members against Covid to Nazi doctors experimenting on concentration camp prisoners. The Army doctor in question, Theresa Long, said in a legal deposition in August that she is a senior medical military adviser to RFK, Jr., but also reports to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

The military industrial complex just expanded to include the NIH, apparently. Eisenhower must be spinning in his grave.

Happy Labor Day to those of you who pay US taxes.