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Dr. Fauci Reveals Grim Fate of Morgan Island Monkeys in Letter to Congresswoman Nancy Mace
The Post and Courier reported:
When a South Carolina congresswoman began investigating a monkey farm three years ago, Dr. Anthony Fauci wrote her a letter revealing details of secretive government experiments using primates from Morgan Island, better known as Monkey Island.
In language that that reads at times like science fiction, Fauci confirmed to U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace that 382 of the island’s monkeys had been used in experiments funded by the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) over two years. The experiments, he said, were part of $658 million spent agency-wide in research using monkeys as subjects. Mace has been a critic of Morgan Island and has called its treatment of monkeys cruel and inhumane.
The letter from Fauci, the then-head of NIAID, offered the first glimpse inside a taxpayer-funded breeding farm on a barrier island that has been largely sealed off from the public for more than four decades. It gave details of what happens each year to about 500 Morgan Island monkeys who are herded into enclosures on the island and shipped to federal holding centers in rural Maryland before they are sent to labs across the country.
RFK Jr. Brings in Team to ‘Revolutionize’ US Vaccine Injury Compensation Program
After taking aim at the U.S.’ vaccine safety reporting system earlier this year, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has added a federal vaccine injury compensation program to his list of immunization bugbears. And this time around, the HHS Secretary says he already has a team working on a potential overhaul.
“We just brought in a guy this week who’s going to be revolutionizing the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program,” Kennedy said during an interview with Tucker Carlson on Monday. Kennedy rebuked the no-fault system underpinning the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, or NVICP, which was established in 1988 through the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986.
The program was designed as a spike in lawsuits against vaccine companies threatened to cause vaccine shortages and disease resurgences, according to a Human Resources & Services Administration fact page on the program.
“No matter how reckless that company is, no matter how toxic the product, no matter how egregious your injury, you cannot sue them,” Kennedy said of the program in its current form.
HHS Hunts for New Autism Links While David Geier Searches for ‘Lost’ Vaccine Data
Federally funded autism research is undergoing a transformation under HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Three new federal research initiatives have been launched, and they all have one thing in common: they attempt to identify possible correlations between autism and the environment.
The first involves a search of the CDC’s Vaccine Safety Datalink files to see whether childhood vaccines can be tied to autism. The second is the development of a real-world data platform to assess health claims, electronic medical records, and consumer wearables data.
The third is a $50 million research effort called the Autism Data Science Initiative.
“There’s a big fear that this will be the extent to which the NIH funds autism research in the coming years, that they will not be interested in the standard investigator-initiated grants,” said Helen Tager-Flusberg, PhD, of Boston University, founder of the Coalition of Autism Scientists, a newly formed group of 250 autism researchers.
“There are ongoing funded studies in other areas, but the concern is that these won’t be there in the future — that we won’t have a way to collect new data, to explore novel treatments,” Tager-Flusberg told MedPage Today.
New Data Underscore Rise in CDC Mistrust During Pandemic
The percentage of U.S. adults reporting high confidence in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) fell from 82% in February 2020 to 56% in June 2022, along with decreasing trust in other U.S. health institutions, according to a study yesterday in PLOS Global Public Health.
For the study, researchers from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas conducted four surveys from February 2020 to October 2024 that assessed Americans’ confidence in U.S. health institutions including the CDC, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, state and local health departments, professional medical organizations, the White House, and their own doctor. Sample sizes were 718, 672, 856, and 828, respectively.
All four surveys asked participants their perceptions of public health organizations and who they thought should lead the U.S. response to infectious disease outbreaks. Surveys 1 and 2 also asked questions on the COVID-19 pandemic, while surveys 3 and 4 asked questions around the 2022 and 2024 mpox outbreaks.
I Co-Wrote the Anonymous HHS Report on Pediatric Gender Medicine
In May, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) published a comprehensive review of treatments for gender dysphoria in minors that was swiftly criticized, in part because the names of its authors were withheld.
I am one of the authors. As HHS said upon publication, the review is going through the peer review process, for which anonymity is preferred. My co-authors and I discussed additional reasons for anonymity, including that disclosure might distract attention from the review’s content or lead to personal attacks or professional penalties. Those who have raised concerns about the field of pediatric gender medicine are well aware of the risks to reputations or careers.
The hostile response to the review by medical groups and practitioners underscores why it was necessary. Medicalized treatment for pediatric gender dysphoria needs to be dispassionately scrutinized like any other area of medicine, no matter which side of the aisle is cheering it on. But in the U.S., it has not been.
The review describes how the medicalized “gender affirming care” approach to treating pediatric gender distress, endorsed by the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, rests on very weak evidence. Puberty blockers followed by cross-sex hormones compromise fertility and may cause lifelong sexual dysfunction (among other adverse effects); surgeries such as mastectomies remove healthy tissue and carry known risks of complications.
Medical procedures always have downsides, but in this case no reliable research indicates that these treatments are beneficial to minors’ mental health. One of the most important chapters provides an ethical analysis, arguing that pediatric medical transition is ethically inappropriate because of its unfavorable risk/benefit profile.
We agree with the health authorities in Sweden, who reached the same conclusion in 2022. The argument is quite simple — “medical ethics 101,” as one of my colleagues put it — and does not rely on contested claims about consent or regret, which is how the ethical debate is often framed.
