A conflict of interest surrounds revelations that Dr. Anthony Fauci doubled his net worth during the coronavirus pandemic when he was the White House point man on the crisis and became the face of a social regimen unheard of in US history. The various threads at work depressingly display how medical professionals associated with the federal government can tap into a Swamp machinery set up to generate multiple revenue streams for ex-alleged “public servants” in ways that should make a hack congressman turned K Street lobbyist blush.
“Former White House Chief Medical Advisor Anthony Fauci earned $3.5 million in his first year of retirement from government,” The Daily Caller reported on April 18. Watchdog organization Open the Books obtained a 141-page financial disclosure form filed by Fauci and his wife, former National Institutes of Health bioethicist Dr. Christine Grady. It’s a decidedly unseemly look for supposed public health stewards: exorbitant speaking fees, an overly lavish book publishing contract, and hobnobbing with medical industry lobbyists for pay.
A frightening question to ponder: When America’s leading doctors display the same crass, money-obsessed behavioral patterns as the tackiest politicians, what has become of the Hippocratic Oath and its fundamental regard for the best interests of the patient above any and all other concerns?
Highly Remunerated Author
“Fauci’s net worth roughly doubled from $7.6 million the year prior to the COVID-19 pandemic in January 2019 to $15 million in 2023,” The Daily Caller notes.
“Fauci sold his memoir to a subsidiary of Penguin Random House for a reported $5 million in March 2023,” the news site stated. As Liberty Nation News has documented, Penguin has repeatedly signed progressive establishment luminaries to lucrative book deals that critics have decried as far removed from industry norms.
In 2017, Penguin gave exiting President Barack Obama the patently ridiculous sum of $65 million to write his memoirs. The corporate goliath, a top donor to an uber-connected globalist Swamp think tank called the Atlantic Council, a supporter of numerous progressive causes, is undoubtedly chief among those currently said to be involved in a bidding war to sign the crushingly defeated 2024 Democratic presidential nominee, Kamala Harris. This is despite her widespread unpopularity among the general public, which goes beyond dislike to something much worse for a savvy book publisher: overwhelming disinterest.
But this isn’t about making smart business deals. Major publishers are “willing to pay” Harris “a whopping advance of as much as $20 million for an inside look at President Joe Biden’s White House and presidential campaign tell-all,” UK newspaper The Daily Mail reported in December.
Do you really think they believe you can’t wait to run out and buy that?
Fauci to Walgreens and Back Again
Then there are those lobbyist speaking fees. “Fauci also accepted speaking gigs with several special interest groups in 2023,” The Daily Caller writes. “Some of these organizations and trade associations – including the National Association of Chain Drug Stores and American Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) – have policy agendas that intersect with the federal government’s COVID-19 response or the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the NIH division that Fauci led for nearly four decades.”
In other words, special interest groups that made a mint off of specific government actions and programs overseen by Fauci turned around and handed him a wad of dough to appear before them immediately after he left his federal post. Well, why not? Politicians have been doing it for decades.
Rick Gates, chief pharmacy officer at Walgreens, is vice chair of the National Association of Chain Drug Stores. His company raked in a windfall due to its working relationship with Fauci during the pandemic.
“CVS Health and Walgreens will play a bigger role in the effort as a federal program ships doses to more of their stores and those of other retail pharmacies,” CNBC reported in Feb. 2021. “The expansion represents a business opportunity for the nation’s two largest pharmacy chains as they get paid for each vaccine and draw more foot traffic to stores.”
“Walgreens Boots Alliance reported more than $880 million in quarterly profits as customers continued to get vaccinated and boosted against Covid-19 or tested for the virus,” Forbes reported in May 2022.
How about an in-store appearance? A New York City Walgreens pharmacy manager even gave Fauci a booster shot on national television. “Dr. Fauci’s booster shot at Walgreens Store #14297 was televised live on [CBS’s] The Late Show with Stephen Colbert Wednesday night, and [manager Jamal] Downer says everything went smoothly thanks to his fellow team members working behind the scenes,” the corporation gushed in an Oct. 2022 news release.
Wonder what “bioethicist” Grady would say about her husband taking pharmacy lobby cash after doing so much to enrich these retail behemoths’ financial bottom lines? It’s a pity nobody in the dominant media will ever ask her.
Superheroes Don’t Come Cheap
Fauci became the brunt of criticism in 2023 when he immediately signed up after his federal retirement with a professional agency to serve as a “motivational speaker” at $50,000 to $100,000 a pop. Leading Motivational Speakers Agency, the firm that nabbed Fauci, eventually was forced to remove his listing due to the embarrassing blowback it engendered. But the internet is forever, and an archive page still exists.
“Anthony is a keynote speaker who’s career warrants execution under immense pressure that can alter the course of human existence. His work on domestic as well as global health issues has saved millions of lives. This high level of research, discovery and execution is amazing given the grave challenges he faces on a daily basis,” the promotional text read.
The blurb says it all about the progressive establishment elite and how they see themselves. Not only do they have no shame about trading on a position of trust for wholly unethical and vast personal enrichment, but they demand to be crowned with the laurels of hero status as they do so. God help a nation that has Bill Clintons and Barack Obamas for doctors.
