Fauci, NIAID spent millions on research using aborted babies' tissue, organs: report

By Ryan Foley, Christian Post Reporter Tuesday, February 08, 2022

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, speaks during a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing to discuss the ongoing federal response to COVID-19 on May 11, 2021, in Washington, D.C. | Greg Nash-Pool/Getty Images

Millions of dollars in taxpayers' money funded research using aborted babies’ body parts, according to a new report.

The White Coat Waste Project, which released the report, describes itself as “a taxpayer watchdog group representing more than 2 million liberty-lovers and animal-lovers who all agree: taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to pay over $20 billion every year for wasteful and cruel experiments on dogs, cats, monkeys, and other animals.” In a blog published Friday, the group unveiled the findings of an investigation probing experiments conducted by the National Institutes of Health.

“A new White Coat Waste Project (WCW) investigation has uncovered that the NIH is actively funding over $27 million of research approved to use Human Fetal Tissue, also known as HFT. That $27 million is just the beginning — the NIH expects to spend over $88 million total on HFT this year,” the group said.

White Coat Waste Project noted that the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) has spent the largest share of the $27 million awarded to NIH to study human fetal tissue research so far. NIAID is headed by Dr. Anthony Fauci, who has become the face of the federal government’s efforts to fight the coronavirus pandemic. Fauci’s agency has spent $21.6 million on fetal tissue research, accounting for 80% of the award granted to the NIH to conduct such experiments.

NIAID then distributed these grants to academic institutions to perform the research. One experiment was conducted at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a public university, using $727,806 in taxpayers' dollars. The experiment involved the implantation of fetal bone marrows, liver and thymus into mice, who were subsequently infected with HIV to examine “the human gut microbiome and its role in HIV infection.” The White Coat Waste Project reported that researchers later decapitated the mice and “removed their brains.”

Another experiment, conducted at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, involved the creation of “double humanized” mice by feeding the animals “human donor fecal samples.” Like the experiment at UNC Chapel Hill, the stated purpose of the experiment was to “test the impact of the gut microbiome on treatments for various human diseases like HIV-1 and cancer.” The mice in this experiment were given “a functional human immune system and a stable human-like gut microbiome to study human health and disease.”

The White Coat Waste Project denounced the University of Nebraska-Lincoln experiment as “one of the ‘crappiest’ Fauci-funded experiments we’ve ever discovered” and lamented that it came with a $2.8 million price tag. The watchdog group is not the only organization expressing concern over how NIAID uses some of its tax dollars.

Last year, the pro-life group Students for Life of America held a rally outside the NIH headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland, to demand Fauci’s firing over his agency’s role in funding testing at the University of Pittsburgh, where researchers implant the scalps of aborted babies onto the backs of mice.

Pro-life activist David Daleiden called on Fauci to testify before Congress about any knowledge he might have of potentially illegal action taken by the University of Pittsburgh as it conducted the controversial humanized mice experiments.

The outrage over NIAID’s use of taxpayers' dollars to bankroll controversial research comes as the NIH continues to face scrutiny over its role in the coronavirus pandemic. Some scientists and politicians have alleged that the NIH funded gain-of-function research, described by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., as “juicing up naturally occurring animal viruses to infect humans.”

Fauci vigorously denied the allegation that the NIH funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, where the coronavirus is believed to have escaped from, in a testy exchange with Paul last spring. Later, the NIH appeared to admit that it did fund gain-of-function research, although it denied doing so deliberately. Almost immediately after the admission became public, the organization that conducted the study in Wuhan, EcoHealth Alliance, was accused of orchestrating a “cover up.”

The White Coat Waste Project is advocating for the passage of the Cost Openness and Spending Transparency (COST) Act, which would strengthen a federal law requiring those using taxpayer dollars to conduct medical experiments to disclose how much they spent. Introduced in the U.S. Senate by Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, The COST Act has secured the support of four additional senators, all Republicans.

Companion legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives, introduced by Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., has received support from 12 additional House Republicans. So far, the legislation has not been brought up for a vote in either chamber.

Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com