The Washington Post Just Busted Fauci on 'Beagle Gate'

To say the emails show that NIH was not “fully transparent as it tried to handle a public-relations nightmare" is quite the understatement.

Nearly three years ago I observed that Dr. Anthony Fauci was facing calls to resign by PETA and lawmakers over “reports of costly, cruel, and unnecessary tax-payer funded experiments on dogs commissioned by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases” (NIAID), the federal agency he led.

The allegations, which can be read in this report by The Hill, were publicly ignored by Fauci and denied by NIH (the agency that oversees NIAID).

However, some 32 months later Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene ripped into Fauci during a congressional hearing, waving around a picture of a dog that had been infested with larva as part of these experiments.

“As director of NIH, you did sign off on these so-called scientific experiments. And as a dog lover, I want to tell you this is disgusting and evil. What you signed off on and these experiments that happened to beagles paid for by the American taxpayer. And I want you to know Americans don’t pay their taxes for animals to be tortured like this.”

The statement prompted the Washington Post to deliver a fact-check in response to the denial.

“…NIH said that it did fund a study in Tunisia involving dogs and sand flies, but NIH suggested that study was a more benign one that allowed the dogs to roam.

But it’s more complicated than that, a review of NIH emails and documents obtained by the group since 2021 under the Freedom of Information Act suggests. Some of the documents call into question NIH’s statements at the time, part of what appears to be a bungled public relations response.”

I’d encourage everyone to read the fact-check for themselves, but what’s clear is that the Post is throwing shade on the denials NIH fed the newspaper (and the Post published without verifying).

The Post’s fact-check confirmed that:

1) NIH issued a grant for this research in Tunisia

2) NIH had a study on its website of the research that was surreptitiously removed when it became a "pr nightmare"

3) NIH failed to disclose that the editor of the journal being called for "correction" reported a conflict of interest because "she was an employee of NIAID"(!!)

4) NIH's denial was based solely on a NIAID grant recipient's claim that NIAID had been "mistakenly attributed" — even though NIAID issued the grant to grantee.

To say the emails show that NIH was not “fully transparent as it tried to handle a public-relations nightmare" is quite the understatement.

NIAID actively tried to hide its complicity in this research, which is not just disgusting but completely unnecessary, and apparently convinced a grant recipient to say NIAID "was mistakenly cited"— even though NIAID awarded the funds.

The kicker? The Post’s fact-checker, Glenn Kessler, says its silly to blame the person who approved the grant—Fauci—because NIAID funds so many projects. This is precisely the lack of accountability we witnessed on Monday, with Fauci denying he was responsible for anything during the Covid pandemic.

I mean, where exactly does the buck stop, if not the director of the agency who approved the grant?

The State’s Monopoly on Violence

The reality is that the US government has a long history of funding and conducting gruesome experiments on animals and even on people—”research” that would land any private individual or enterprise behind bars if it ever came to light.

The 1932 Tuskegee experiment, which allowed hundreds of African Americans to go untreated for syphilis so scientists could study its effects, is perhaps the most famous such experiment conducted by the US government—but it is just one of many. Other research conducted or funded by the government—mostly in the 1940s and 1950s—included experiments that injected subjects with hepatitis, gonorrhea, Malaria, and the Asian Flu.

News records at the time made no mention of many of the experiments, NBC reported in 2011.

Many no doubt wonder how the government was able to get away with such experiments, but the answer is not difficult to find. As the economist Murray Rothbard once observed, government bestows itself with certain privileges not afforded to others in society—particularly the ability to use violence.

“The State is that organization in society which attempts to maintain a monopoly of the use of force and violence in a given territorial area,” Rothbard wrote in Anatomy of the State.

Rothbard was referring primarily to the state’s ability to raise revenue through taxation instead of trade (or charity) like everyone else. But history is replete with examples showing the state also uses its monopoly on force to exempt itself from the usual laws that govern mere individuals and private enterprises.

Many will argue that gruesome experiments on puppies are not the same thing as gruesome experiments on humans, and I’d agree—but that’s not really the point. The point is that government consistently exempts itself from the ethics that (rightly) bind the rest of us.

The most frightening part of all—as we’ve seen in recent days, months and years—is that even when they get caught, bureaucrats are rarely held to account for their mistakes and atrocities.