Business
Column: After smearing Anthony Fauci, House Republicans proceed to defame a prominent vaccine scientist
Peter J. Hotez is one of America’s most prominent vaccine experts. A professor at Baylor College of Medicine, he’s also co-director of the Texas Children’s Center for Vaccine Development, which has developed and licensed a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine that has been distributed widely in the third world.
He’s also among our most prominent critics of the anti-vaccine and anti-science movements that have so thoroughly infected our public discourse — most recently in his 2023 book “The Deadly Rise of Anti-Science: A Scientist’s Warning.” In my columns I’ve quoted him often on that theme.
But Hotez, 66, has had nothing to do with research into the origins of COVID-19, which is supposedly the principal topic of inquiry by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.
Anyone who wants my emails and can stomach the Qanon, Putin, and Nazi threats is more than welcomed to them.
— Peter Hotez
So that raises the question of why the subcommittee chose to post a tweet about Hotez on Monday, completely out of the blue.
The tweet accused Hotez of complicity with an effort by David Morens of the National Institutes of Health to circumvent freedom-of-information inquiries by using a private, rather than official, email account. As these things go, the tweet exposes Hotez to public vituperation on social media and possibly physical harm.
The tweet read as follows:
“Meet Dr. Peter Hotez. Friend and potential accomplice to Dr. Fauci’s Senior Advisor — Dr. David Morens. New evidence suggests Dr. Hotez frequently communicated with Dr. Morens about FOIA evasion tactics and COVID-19 origins.”
Also on Monday, the subcommittee demanded by letter that Hotez turn over all documents and communications between him and six federal agencies and 25 individuals, most of whom are scientists researching COVID’s origins. The letter asserted that Hotez was “involved in frequent e-mail discussions” with Morens and Peter Daszak of EcoHealth Alliance “regarding the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.”
A subcommittee spokesperson told me by email that its rationale for targeting Hotez is that among the 30,000 pages of emails Morens provided for its inquiry, “Dr. Hotez is involved in thousands.” In its letter, however, the panel cited only two emails; there are indications in the files it has released that to the extent Hotez is “involved” in emails with Morens, it’s as an addressee in group exchanges with other scientists.
The spokesperson also stated that “Dr. Hotez has relevant communications regarding the origins of COVID-19 with not only many individuals in the federal government and other scientists pertinent to our investigation, but also with Chinese scientists and researchers.” If it knew that, however, why would it need to ask Hotez to provide the communications? Plainly it’s engaged in a fishing expedition.
In any event, the panel’s letter doesn’t cite any evidence that Hotez was “a potential accomplice” of Morens’, much less justify singling him out via a tweet. The subcommittee’s Democratic membership, who I previously condemned for their cowardly and shameful complicity in the panel’s attack on Daszak, didn’t respond to my request for comment.
Its tweet and its letter demonstrate how far the subcommittee has gone off the rails, its inquiry having deteriorated into a campaign to smear legitimate scientists working on what may be the most important public health imperative of our time: preparing to fight the next pandemic by understanding the latest one.
The message, observes scientist and science writer Philipp Markolin, is crystal clear. It’s “speak up against us and our political myth making, and we will publicly smear and punish you with the power of the state.”
As I’ve written, to advance this campaign the subcommittee has placed respected scientists in the dock and showered them with public vituperation, misrepresented their research and ridiculed the scientific method. It has stigmatized EcoHealth Alliance and its president, Peter Daszak, provoking government bureaucrats to cut off their funding.
On Monday, the subcommittee turned its gunsights on Fauci, a revered expert in virology and immunology who was director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for 38 years and a key figure in the development of therapies to fight HIV infection.
That hearing was grounded to a complete halt when member Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) went on a tear accusing Fauci of killing dogs and asserting “he belongs in prison.” The panel struggled mightily to get Greene to shut up so the hearing could continue. But that was only one low note among many as the GOP majority lived down to our worst expectations.
Instead of responsibly examining the origins of COVID, the subcommittee has burrowed into a series of rabbit holes. It has sought proof that Fauci manipulated a scientific paper to “suppress” scientific findings that the pandemic originated with a leak from a Chinese virology institute.
That effort has failed because not only is there no evidence to support it, but because its own evidence proves that Fauci urged researchers to notify law enforcement authorities if they determined that a lab-leak actually happened. As I’ve reported, learned scientific opinion overwhelmingly supports the theory that the pandemic originated in a spillover of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID, from infected wildlife to humans.
The subcommittee also has become fixated on evidence that Morens deliberately tried to evade public records laws and NIH policies by conducting some of his correspondence with NIH-funded scientists via private emails, which he mistakenly thought would protect them from freedom-of-information requests. The members may be right about Morens’ activities, but that doesn’t get them any closer to the origins of COVID — after 15 months of wheel-spinning.
That brings us back to the attack on Hotez. He appears to be an innocent bystander to the subcommittee’s campaign of character assassination waged against Fauci and other leaders in COVID research until the panel tried to drag him through the swamp it created.
Hotez hasn’t participated in research into COVID’s origins; he mentioned that research in his book about anti-science, but only as an illustration of how the lab-leak theory became part of the disinformation epidemic related to COVID. That epidemic includes misrepresentations about the safety and efficacy of the COVID vaccines, which is an area in which Hotez has considerable expertise.
So let’s examine the subcommittee’s claims about Hotez.
How many emails are behind the subcommittee’s assertion in its letter to Hotez that “you were involved in frequent e-mail discussions” with Morens and Peter Daszak of EcoHealth Alliance regarding the origins of the coronavirus pandemic”?
Two, according to the letter itself and the file of emails the subcommittee released as evidence in its investigation of Morens.
Both emails were cited in the subcommittee’s letter to Hotez. But neither has anything to do with the origins of COVID-19. In one, Hotez tells Morens in a jocular tone that he has sent “many emails to [Fauci] over the years, but I don’t think anything incriminating.”
The second referred to an email that Morens mistakenly sent to Hotez but was meant for Daszak; Hotez wrote back to advise Morens that he sent the email to the wrong Peter, which Morens promptly acknowledged.
The panel’s letter, issued over the signature of its chairman, Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), points out rather gleefully that Hotez responded to its tweet by stating, also by tweet, that “anyone who wants my emails and can stomach the Qanon, Putin, and Nazi threats is more than welcomed to them. Some I’ve published in my books, others in my articles on anti-science and antisemitism.”
The members seemed to take that as an official offer, as opposed to a mordant joke. But it’s unclear that Hotez even has the authority to fulfill the subcommittee’s demand, since he conducts all his correspondence via his Baylor email account. That suggests that a decision about whether and how to respond would be in Baylor’s hands; the school hasn’t yet responded to the subcommittee.
The fact is that the subcommittee has wasted nearly a year and a half chasing a chimera. Its members have nattered on endlessly about their responsibility to safeguard the taxpayers’ money. But how much has it squandered in this spavined, untrustworthy inquiry?
Wenstrup and his colleagues can’t be unaware that their public smear of Hotez may well place him in the crosshairs of people intent on doing him harm. Last year, he was accosted in front of his home by two anti-vaccine agitators demanding that he debate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about vaccine safety. In his book he reproduced vituperative emails, including one that called him “a living Mengele.”
That’s the atmosphere pervading the public discussion of science in the U.S. today. The Select Subcommittee has done its best to contribute to this poisonous miasma. It needs to retract its statement about Hotez, post-haste. And the Democrats on the subcommittee need to speak out about their GOP colleagues’ invasion of a scientist’s privacy and their vilification of science and scientists generally. If they remain silent, they can’t evade responsibility for the consequences.
Four years ago, California startup Theta Labs’ cryptocurrency was soaring, and its future appeared bright when it landed a partnership with pop star Katy Perry.
The Bay Area company had built a marketplace for digital collectibles known as nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, and had teamed up with Perry to launch NFTs tied to her Las Vegas concert residency. Its THETA token jumped by more than 500% in early 2021, reaching a peak of more than $15, making it one of the world’s most valuable cryptocurrencies. Later in the year, the spotlight shone on the company when it announced the Perry partnership.
“I can’t wait to dive in with the Theta team on all the exciting and memorable creative pieces, so my fans can own a special moment of my residency,” Perry said in a June 2021 news release.
Today, like many cryptocurrencies, THETA is 95% off its 2021 peak. It took a hit this week after former executives accused it of manipulating markets to dupe consumers into buying its products. On Tuesday, it was trading at less than 30 cents.
Two former executives from Theta Labs sued the startup, alleging in separate lawsuits that the company and its chief executive, Mitch Liu, engaged in fraud and manipulated the cryptocurrency market for his benefit. Liu retaliated against them after the employees refused to engage in deceptive business practices and raised concerns, the lawsuits say.
Some of the alleged misconduct involved placing fake bids on Perry’s NFTs, engaging in token “pump and dump” schemes and using celebrity endorsements and “misleading” partnerships with high-profile companies such as Google to deceive the public, according to the December lawsuits filed in Los Angeles Superior Court.
Perry is not accused of any wrongdoing in the suit, and Theta denies the charges.
The lawsuits against Theta Labs are the latest controversy to rattle an industry beset by scandals.
Cryptocurrency exchange FTX collapsed, and its founder, Samuel Bankman-Fried, was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2024 after being found guilty of multiple fraud charges. Binance founder and former Chief Executive Changpeng Zhao also got prison time after he pleaded guilty to violating money laundering laws, but President Trump pardoned him this year.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission previously charged celebrities such as Kim Kardashian, Lindsay Lohan, Jake Paul and Ne-Yo for promoting crypto without disclosing they were paid to do so.
Theta Labs created a network that rewarded people with cryptocurrency for contributing spare bandwidth and computing power to enhance video streaming and lower content delivery costs. The company describes Theta Network as a “blockchain-powered decentralized cloud for AI, media and entertainment.” The network has two tokens: THETA, used to secure the network, and TFUEL, used to pay users for services and power operations.
The whistleblowers suing Theta Labs are Jerry Kowal, its former head of content, and Andrea Berry, previously the company’s head of business development.
“Liu used Theta Labs as his personal trading vehicle, perpetrating fraud, self-dealing, and market manipulation,” said Mark Mermelstein, Kowal’s attorney, in a statement. “His calculated ‘pump-and-dump’ schemes repeatedly wiped out employee and investor value. This suit is about demanding accountability and proving no one is above the law.”
Theta, Liu and its parent company, Sliver VR Technologies, deny the allegations and “intend to prove with evidence the fallacy of the stories being told in the lawsuits,” according to Kronenberger Rosenfeld, the law firm representing the defendants. The lawsuits are an attempt to paint the company in a negative light in hopes of securing a settlement, a lawyer for the firm said.
Kowal has sued his former employers before. In 2014, he accused Netflix of spreading false claims that he stole confidential information and Amazon of wrongful termination.
The latest lawsuits allege that Liu profited from buying and selling THETA tokens using insider knowledge about partnerships with celebrities, studios and others in the entertainment industry.
“Liu’s true motive in pursuing such partnerships was not to develop a sustainable content business but to generate publicity that could be used to artificially inflate token prices for Liu’s personal gain,” Kowal’s lawsuit says.
Kowal worked for Theta from 2020 to 2025.
In 2020, Liu traded and sold tokens knowing that the company would close a content licensing deal with MGM Studios, according to the lawsuit. After the deal’s announcement, THETA token’s market capitalization increased by more than $50 million in just 24 hours, the lawsuit says.
When NFTs started to take off in 2021, Kowal closed deals with high-profile partners such as Perry, Fremantle Media and Resorts World Las Vegas for the startup’s NFT marketplace.
As part of the deal with Perry, the singer received $8.5 million and additional warrants for the right to license her image and likeness for the NFTs.
To inflate the price and demand for these digital collectibles, Liu allegedly made bids on NFTs and directed employees to do the same. This led to people overpaying for the Perry NFTs.
Representatives for Perry didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Multiple examples of alleged manipulation are outlined in the lawsuits. In one instance from 2022, the startup launched a new token called TDROP that employees also received as part of a bonus.
Liu gained control of 43% of the supply of the cryptocurrency, according to Kowal’s lawsuit. When the TDROP token reached a high, he then sold the token, and its price collapsed by more than 90% within months.
Berry’s lawsuit also alleges that Theta Labs announced “misleading” or fake partnerships with high-profile companies such as Google and entities including NASA to pump up the value of the THETA token. Theta paid for Google Cloud products but claimed it was a partner when it was a Google customer, according to the lawsuit.
Retired nurse Nancy Reed has been through the ringer trying to get insurance for her home next to a San Diego County nature preserve.
First, she was dropped by her longtime carrier and forced onto the state’s insurer of last resort, the California FAIR Plan, which offers basic fire policies — something thousands of residents have experienced at the hands of fire-leery insurance companies.
But what she didn’t expect was how hard it would be to find the extra coverage she needed to augment her FAIR Plan policy, which doesn’t cover common perils such as water damage or liability if someone is injured on a property.
She secured the “difference-in-conditions” policies from two insurers, only to be dropped by both before finally finding another for her Escondido home.
“I’ve lived in this house for 25 years, and I went from a very fair price to ‘we’re not insuring you anymore’ — and I’ve had three different difference-in-conditions policies,” said Reed, 71, who is paying about $2,000 for 12 months of the extra coverage. “And I’m holding my breath to see if I will be renewed next year.”
Now, a Department of Insurance regulation that would have required the FAIR plan to offer that additional coverage has been blocked by a state appeals court — leaving the plan’s customers to find that insurance in a market widely considered dysfunctional.
The court ruled earlier this month that the order would have forced the plan to offer liability insurance, which was not the intent of the Legislature when it established the plan in 1968 to offer essential insurance for those who couldn’t get it.
“We appreciate that the court confirmed the California FAIR Plan is designed and intended to operate as California’s insurer of last resort, providing basic property coverage when it cannot be obtained in the voluntary market,” said spokesperson Hilary McLean.
Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara said he is “looking at all available options” following the decision. “I’ve been fighting so people can have access to all of the coverage the FAIR Plan is required by law to provide,” he said in a statement.
Lara has faced criticism from consumer advocates who’ve called for his resignation over his response to the state’s ongoing property insurance crisis.
A FAIR Plan policy covers fires, lightning, smoke damage and internal explosions, as well as vandalism and some other hazards at an additional cost. But in addition to water damage and liability protection, it doesn’t cover such common perils as theft and the damage caused by trees falling on a house.
The demand for the additional coverage — commonly referred to as a “wrap-around” policy — has become even greater than in 2021 when Lara issued the order overturned on appeal.
The FAIR Plan at the time had about 160,000 active dwelling policies following a series of catastrophic wildfires, including the 2018 fire that nearly destroyed the mountain town of Paradise. By September, that number had grown to 646,000.
The insurance department lists less than two dozen companies that offer wrap-around policies, including major California home insurers such as Mercury and Farmers and a a number of smaller carriers.
Broker Dina Smith said that to find the coverage for her home insurance clients she needs to place about 90% of them with carriers not regulated by the state — with the combined coverage typically costing at least twice as much as a regular policy.
“The [market] is very limited,” said Smith, a managing director at Gallagher.
Safeco has not written California wrap-around coverage since the beginning of the year and will begin non-renewing existing policies next month. Smith also said carriers are being selective, with the ones that offer the coverage often demanding exclusions, such as for certain types of water damage.
“If I’ve got a newer home with no prior claims … for liability losses, it’s going to be easy to write. If I get a home that is built in the 1950s that might still have galvanized pipes … that’s going to be a tough one,” she said.
Attorney Amy Bach, executive director of United Policyholders, a San Francisco consumer group, said the difference-in-conditions, or DIC, market is getting just as problematic for homeowners as the overall market.
“The market is not as strong as it needs to be … given how many people are in the FAIR Plan, and there aren’t as many DIC options — with the DIC companies being just as picky as the primary insurers,” she said.
There is also confusion about the policies, she said. Her group is considering pushing for a law next year that would clearly label the coverage so consumers better understand what they are buying.
The Trump administration will begin to garnish the pay of student loan borrowers in January, the Department of Education said Tuesday, stepping up a repayment enforcement effort that began this year.
Beginning the week of Jan. 7, roughly 1,000 borrowers who are in default will receive notices informing them of their status, according to an email from the department. The number of notices will increase on a monthly basis.
The collection activities are “conducted only after student and parent borrowers have been provided sufficient notice and opportunity to repay their loans,” according to the email, which was unsigned.
The announcement comes as many Americans are already struggling financially, and the cost of living is top of mind. The wage garnishing could compound the effects on lower-income families contending with a stressed economy, employment concerns and health care premiums that are set to rise for millions of people.
The email did not contain any details about the nature of the garnishment, such as how much would be deducted from wages, but according to the government’s student aid website, up to 15 percent of a borrower’s take-home pay can be withheld. The government typically directs employers to withhold a certain amount, similar to a payroll tax.
A borrower should be sent a notice of the government’s intent 30 days before the seizure begins, according to the website, StudentAid.gov.
The administration ended a five-year reprieve on student loan repayments in May, paving the way for forced collections — meaning tax refunds and other federal payments, like Social Security, could be withheld and applied toward debt payments.
That move ushered in the end of pandemic-era relief that began in March 2020, when payments were paused. More than 9 percent of total student debt reported between July and September was more than 90 days delinquent or in default, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. In April, only one-third of the 38 million Americans who owed money for college or graduate school and should have been making payments actually were, according to government data.
“It’s going to be more painful as you move down the income distribution,” said Michael Roberts, a professor of finance at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. But, he added, borrowers have to contend with the fact that they did take out money, even as government policies allowed many to put the loans at the back of their minds.
After several extensions by the Biden administration, payments resumed in October 2023, but borrowers were not penalized for defaulting until last year. About five million borrowers are in default, and millions more are expected to be close to missing payments.
The government had signaled this year that it would send notices that could lead to the garnishing of a portion of a borrower’s paycheck. Being in collections and in default can damage credit scores.
The government garnished wages before the pandemic pause, said Betsy Mayotte, president of the Institute of Student Loan Advisors, which provides free advice for borrowers. But the 2020 collections pause was the first she was aware of, she said, and that may make the deductions more shocking for people who have not had to pay for years.
“There’s a lot of defaulted borrowers that think that there was a mistake made somewhere along the line, or the Department of Education forgot about them,” Ms. Mayotte said. “I think this is going to catch a lot of them off guard.”
The first day after a missed payment, a loan becomes delinquent. After a certain amount of time in delinquency, usually 270 days, the loan is considered in default — the kind of loan determines the time period. If someone defaults on a federal student loan, the entire balance becomes due immediately. Then the loan holder can begin collections, including on wages.
But there are options to reorganize the defaulted loans, including consolidation or rehabilitation, which requires making a certain number of consecutive payments determined by the holder.
Often, people who default on debt owe the smallest amounts, said Constantine Yannelis, an economics professor at the University of Cambridge who researches U.S. student loans.
“They’re often dropouts or they went to two-year, for-profit colleges, and people who spent many, many years in schools, like doctors or lawyers, have very low default rates,” he said.
This year, millions of borrowers saw their credit scores drop after the pause on penalties was lifted. If someone does not earn an income, the government can take the person to court. But, practically speaking, a borrower’s credit score will plummet.
Dr. Yannelis added that a common reason people default was that they were not aware of the repayment options. There are plans that allow borrowers to pay 10 percent of their income rather than having 15 percent garnished, for example.
The whiplash policy changes around the time of the pandemic were “a terrible thing from a borrower-welfare perspective,” Dr. Yannelis said. “Policy uncertainty is really terrible for borrowers.”
Into the void: how Trump killed international law
California farming tycoon arrested in wife’s killing
Tim Scott tells MAGA voters Trump ‘is on the ballot’ as GOP fights to grow Senate majority in 2026
GOP governor lays out plan to ‘purge’ terrorists and terror supporters from state
Pope Leo appoints pro-immigration bishop to diocese home to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago
Florida High School Football Rankings: Top 25 teams – Oct. 21
Cleary's 21 help Le Moyne down Central Connecticut State 69-64 in OT
How old is Bo Nix? What to know about Oregon quarterback ahead of 2024 NFL Draft
99th annual Pony Swim held in Virginia
Video: ‘It Didn’t Have to Happen This Way:’ U.Va. Faculty Call for Review of Police Response to Protests
Into the void: how Trump killed international law
Nearly 20 states sue HHS over declaration to restrict gender transition treatment for minors
Europe defends its digital rules after US targets Breton with visa ban
New Epstein files mention Trump. And, SCOTUS rules on National Guard in Chicago
Nick Fuentes says he’ll campaign against Vivek Ramaswamy in Ohio in slur-laced rant
-
Maine1 week agoElementary-aged student killed in school bus crash in southern Maine
-
New Mexico1 week agoFamily clarifies why they believe missing New Mexico man is dead
-
Massachusetts1 week agoMIT professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro, a 47-year-old physicist and fusion scientist, shot and killed in his home in Brookline, Mass. | Fortune
-
Detroit, MI1 week ago‘Love being a pedo’: Metro Detroit doctor, attorney, therapist accused in web of child porn chats
-
Health1 week ago‘Aggressive’ new flu variant sweeps globe as doctors warn of severe symptoms
-
Culture1 week agoTry This Quiz and See How Much You Know About Jane Austen
-
World5 days agoPutin says Russia won’t launch new attacks on other countries ‘if you treat us with respect’
-
Education1 week agoVideo: How We Tested Earplugs for Sleeping