Boy, you really have to keep an eye on those fact checkers.
SNOPES never snoops too far, if the government is the bad guy.
This was the dreadful puppy study:
SNOPES says that the assertion that NIAID funded this perverse atrocity was false.
SNOPES do find another couple of dodgy animal studies. But, I reassert, they say this one was not funded by the NIAID, so Fauci was not in charge of the funding organisation. Poor Tony Fauci, being picked on like this.
SNOPES: “Well, the NIAID said they had nothing to do with it, and the journal published a correction. So since we’re a fact checker, we should just believe the government and the journal, because our government is a good government that never lies, and journals are trustworthy.”
FirstFactCheck, in all modesty a vastly superior fact checker: “Let’s look at the actual Funding on the grant.*”
*Which is why you should become a paid subscriber now so I can make more of these wonderful fact checks.
It’s there in the bottom left hand corner.
So what’s the grant number?
R21AI130485.
Well let’s see if we can find that grant number anywhere.
Oh look: there it is in the upper left hand corner of the NIH RePORT page for project number 1R21AI130485-01A1, strangely enough:
The big blurb is worth reading too as it essentially describes the puppy study.
Here’s the link to the grant on NIH RePORT and the wayback archive link as well in case it mysteriously disappears, as incriminating things are wont to do.
https://reporter.nih.gov/search/TF0vJjAG5kGMvbWXRLSEXQ/project-details/9520527#details
Just a minute, we’re not finished yet. Let’s just have a look at who the funder is, at the bottom of the page.
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. N I <cough cough>
In the amount of $208,827.
Now let’s just look at the study again. Who were the authors of said study?
Ifhem Chelbi, Khouloud Maghraoui, Sami Zhioua, Saifedine Cherni, Imen Labidi, Abhay Satoskar, James G. C. Hamilton, Elyes Zhioua
Oooh… Abhay Satoskar and Elyes Zhioua are mentioned in the NIH RePORT as the recipients of the funding.
So… it’s just a flat out lie that NIAID did not fund this. I’m sorry, but I am of the opinion that the NIH RePORT database is a bit more reliable than some official. Changing that database would be fraud; saying they didn’t fund it would just be a memory lapse. Very common these days.
A memory lapse that PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases neglects to call out.
The Politifact article is interesting as they say it’s all about a vaccine, and that the study in Tunisia is not the correct study. Well, sorry, it’s not a vaccine, they are ‘vaccinating’ the dogs against Phlebotomus Pernicious bites using a protozoan parasite called Leishmania, both of which are endemic in Tunisia.
Well, well, well, that might be why they did the actual study in Tunisia. Here is the bottom of the NIH RePORT blurb. Check it out yourself.
You see, if the Phlebotomus Pernicious sand fly doesn’t infect dogs who have the Leishmania parasite that has been given the extra gene (GLP-LmCen), you could say (scientifically speaking) that you have vaccinated the dogs using the genetically modified parasite. This is what they were doing.
Unfortunately whoever wrote the Politifact did not know this or was doing a bit of cherryPickyfacting.
VERDICT: Fauci’s NIAID DID FUND THE PUPPY STUDY
Well, we haven’t had anyone join the first fact check hall of infamy lately. So here it is:
FIRST FACT CHECK HALL OF INFAMY & INEXCUSABLE DISINFORMATION
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. ( N I A I D )
SNOPES (how sad, you were once a decent fact checker at the start before you got obscene amounts of funding.) (this comment is satire so please don’t sue me)
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fauci-vaccine-experiment-beagles/
POLITIFACT (how sad, you have never been a decent fact checker in your life.) (this comment is satire so please don’t sue me either)
https://www.politifact.com/article/2021/oct/28/unpacking-noise-around-dr-anthony-fauci-and-beagle/
PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases. (How sad, what a giant PLOS this is to science.)
especially the
plosntds_team
Change log:
Removed references to NIH in Snopes article.
Changed if the Phlebotomus Pernicious sand fly doesn’t like dogs
to if the Phlebotomus Pernicious sand fly doesn’t infect dogs