Throughout the pandemic, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., has criticized the federal government for quashing the robust debate that is central to scientific inquiry, and now he is proposing an amendment that would prevent anyone from acting as the public health “dictator-in-chief.”
With Dr. Anthony Fauci in mind, his amendment introduced Monday would eliminate the position of director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and break down the NIAID into three separate national research institutes.
The new institutes — National Institute of Allergic Diseases, the National Institute of Infectious Diseases and the National Institute of Immunologic Diseases — would each have a director.
“We’ve learned a lot over the past two years, but one lesson in particular is that no one person should be deemed ‘dictator-in-chief,'” Paul said in a statement. “No one person should have unilateral authority to make decisions for millions of Americans.”
The senator argued the changes “will create accountability and oversight into a taxpayer funded position that has largely abused its power, and has been responsible for many failures and misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Fauci has been the director of NIAID since 1984. Paul’s proposal would require that the directors of each of the three institutes be appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate for a five-year term.
“I’ve been a physician for over 33 years,” Paul wrote in an opinion column Monday for Fox News Digital. “In all my years studying and practicing medicine, I had never encountered someone with the gall to proclaim himself ‘the science’ and portray anyone opposing him as ‘attacking science.’ That is, until Dr. Fauci became the COVID dictator-in-chief.”
Paul’s reference was to Fauci’s statements that criticism of him amounts to attacks on science itself, insisting that he is “the science.”
The senator wrote that the “biggest lesson we have learned over the last two years is that no one person should have this much unchecked power.”
“And my amendment, which will get a vote this week, will finally force accountability and fire Dr. Fauci,” he said.
Paul has engaged in numerous exchanges with Fauci over the past two years in Senate hearings. The latest was in January, when Paul presented evidence contradicting Fauci’s insistence that his government agency did not resume and fund dangerous “gain-of-function” research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Last July, Paul sent a criminal referral to the Department of Justice accusing Fauci of lying to Congress about his role in funding the research.
Fauci is seen on video at a January 2018 NIAID Advisory Council meeting announcing the reinstatement of gain-of-function research and defending its use.
Authored by Art Moore via WND.com
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