MRC Free Speech America update summary: The Department of Health and Human Services and the National Institute for Health reassigned several prominent figures who oversaw COVID-19-related censorship during the Biden administration. Many of these figures quit as a result of the reassignment, including Dr. Clifford Lane, a former deputy director for clinical research and special projects at NIAID, and Larry Tabak, who was formerly principal deputy director of the NIH.
The following article is a supplement to the MRC Report: The Biden Administration Waged War on Free Speech with 57 Censorship Initiatives.
Initiative #20: The COVID-19 Censorship Orders
Type of Censorship: Direct Action
Agencies Involved:
- Department of Defense
- Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)
- National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI)
- Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)
- Department of Health & Human Services (HHS)
- Center for Disease Control (CDC)
- Division of Digital Media
- National Institutes of Health (NIH)
- National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Disease (NIAID)
- Center for Disease Control (CDC)
- Department of State
- Office of the Science & Technology Advisor (STAS)
- Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI)
- Mission Integration Directorate
- National Intelligence Council (NIC)
- Mission Integration Directorate
- Executive Office of the President
- American Rescue Team
Summary:
The NIAID censorship payments from Initiative #19 followed revelations of direct actions that the Biden administration had taken to silence critics of its COVID-19 policies.
Beginning in 2020 and stretching into the Biden administration, the National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases (NIAID) began pressing Big Tech platforms to censor content critical of COVID-19 lockdowns or supportive of using hydroxychloroquine (HCQ). Separately, NIAID also pushed the publication of “research” specifically to incentivize the “take down” of the accounts for its COVID-19 critics.
Sometimes in concert with NIAID, the Center for Disease Control, through its Division of Digital Media, spent years directing Facebook (later Meta) and Google to censor critics of its authoritarian COVID-19 recommendations. The CDC even told Facebook to produce detailed reports on its “amplification” policies so the Department could better direct censorship on issues such as masking, lockdowns and vaccines.
While NIAID and CDC had initially acted independently of the president when silencing critics, after Biden took office, their pressure campaign was joined by top White House officials. As Biden was declaring publicly that Facebook was “killing people” by not censoring enough, his staff pushed Big Tech leadership to ban posts that conveyed vaccine hesitancy or promoted events critical of the White House’s COVID-19 policies.
The White House even went so far as to repeatedly chide Facebook for not initially censoring the “Disinformation Dozen:” a list of twelve specific individuals it wanted censored. One of the names was Biden’s political rival, now-Health & Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg later admitted that, to further coerce censorship action, Biden’s officials would call Meta employees and “scream” obscenities at them.
NIAID and National Institute of Health (NIH) leadership also coordinated directly with both the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-backed World Health Organization (WHO) and the CCP-linked Facebook (now Meta) to censor proponents of the Wuhan laboratory leak theory for COVID-19 origins. In one instance, NIAID Director Anthony Fauci asked WHO Chief Tedros Ghebreyseus to convene with him directly so they could “get ahead of …the narrative” on COVID-19’s origins. Acting on the recommendation of the WHO and Dr. Fauci, Big Tech platforms censored speech suggesting that the COVID-19 virus originated in the CCP’s Wuhan Institute of Virology.
In 2021, scientists at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)’s National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI) uncovered evidence that the virus was indeed lab-made (this information was only recently revealed by The Wall Street Journal). At the direction of NCMI managers, scientists stopped sharing their research with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Adrienne Keen, a former WHO consultant, was simultaneously a global health and science & technology advisor at the State Department and the National Health Council (NIC)’s director for global health security. Keen acted after the censorship of the laboratory leak theory was a hotly contested public issue, and her interference meant that the president was presented only with the less credible “natural origin” theory of the virus.
It was later revealed that Fauci had been directly involved in the funding of the CCP’s Wuhan Institute of Virology, where the virus was likely developed. Appallingly, NIAID’s role in directing the censorship was not revealed until midway through the Biden administration, and even then only when compelled to by a court.
Key Individuals:
- Scott Berrier, Lieutenant General
- Francis Collins, NIH Director
- Carol Crawford, CDC Director of the Division of Digital Media
- Anthony Fauci, NIAID Director
- Avril Haines, Director of National Intelligence
- Adrienne Keen, Director for Global Health Security
- Cliff Lane, NIAID Director of the Division of Clinical Research
- Robert Redfield, CDC Director
- Andy Slavitt, White House Senior Advisor for the COVID-19 Response
- Larry Tabak, Acting NIH Director
- Rochelle Walensky, CDC Director
