Christine Grady, the wife of Dr. Anthony Fauci, was among several top officials who were notified they were being reassigned from the National Institutes of Health to regional offices of the Indian Health Service.
Dr. Fauci, former President Biden’s chief medical adviser, was a key figure during the COVID-19 pandemic who pushed for nationwide school closures, mask mandates, vaccine mandates, social distancing policies and other COVID-19 policies that became the center of political fights.
Ms. Grady served as chief of the Clinical Center’s Department of Bioethics in Bethesda, and like many of her colleagues, were given until Wednesday to decide whether to accept their new assignment, which is responsible for providing federal health services to American Indians and Alaska Natives, or quit their jobs, The New York Times reported.
The turn of events within Dr. Fauci’s world is a somersault from where things once stood.
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, who now leads the NIH as its director, was once condemned in an October 2020 email to Dr. Fauci by Dr. Francis Collins, then NIH director, as a “fringe epidemiologist” for co-authoring a public declaration questioning the efficacy of COVID lockdowns.
Dr. Collins suggested to Dr. Fauci a “quick and devastating published takedown” of Dr. Bhattacharya’s declaration. By summer 2024, Dr. Collins had privately apologized to Dr. Bhattacharya, according to the Free Press.
NIH officials who were given the same reassignment were Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Dr. Clifford Lane, a close Fauci ally who oversaw clinical research.
Additionally, senior Food and Drug Administration tobacco regulator Brian King was reassigned to the Indian Health Service as were several officials at the Centers for Disease Control ad Prevention.
The Trump administration laid off thousands of Health and Human Services Department employees on Tuesday. The mass layoffs included senior officials and scientists who dealt with regulating food and drugs, staving off disease, and researching new treatments and cures.
Dr. Bhattacharya emailed his staff Tuesday that the layoffs would “have a profound impact on key N.I.H. administrative functions, including communications, legislative affairs, procurement and human resources.” He lauded “scientists and staff whose work has contributed to lifesaving breakthroughs in biology and medicine.”
Kerry Picket
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