Business
Column: Anatomy of a smear — Fauci faces the House GOP's clown show about COVID
Here’s what we know about Dr. Anthony S. Fauci: As a staff member at the National Institutes of Health for 54 years and director of its National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases for 38 years, Fauci was a key figure in the development of therapies for HIV and ensuring that funding was available for the search for a cure.
Under his leadership, NIAID invested billions of dollars in research that resulted in the development of mRNA technology, which in turn resulted in the development of COVID-19 vaccines in record time, saving millions of lives.
Under Fauci, NIAID also sponsored research into treatments for pandemic flu and the Ebola and Zika viruses. When COVID struck, he was tapped as a top advisor to then-President Trump — one of seven presidents he has advised during his career, from Reagan through Biden.
There have been credible death threats leading to the arrests of two individuals, and ‘credible death threats’ means someone who clearly was on his way to kill me.
— Anthony S. Fauci
He’s revered in the communities of immunologists and virologists; even after Trump sidelined him because he was speaking truths about COVID that Trump didn’t like, he was a prominent spokesman for a scientific approach to the pandemic.
Here’s how he was depicted by Republicans during a hearing Monday of the GOP-dominated Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus: as the mastermind of “dogmatic” policies that resulted in school closings and business failures, of forced vaccinations, of “one of the most invasive regimes of domestic policy the U.S. has ever seen.”
As the financial sugar daddy of research overseas that created COVID. As the sponsor of policies that are “fundamentally un-American.” As a liar and hypocrite.
None of those accusations, which were aired Monday by subcommittee Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) and other Republican members, has the slightest relationship with truth.
They’re all elements of a campaign among Republicans and right-wingers aimed at painting Fauci, 83, who retired from NIAID in December 2022, as “a comic-book supervillain,” in the words of Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.).
Why are they doing this? One answer must be that conspiracists always need a target to attack in order to attract followers.
At the core of this campaign is the Republican conviction that COVID escaped from a Chinese laboratory.
Since there is absolutely no evidence for this theory that anyone has yet produced, Plan B has been to smear anyone in the firing line. Unfortunately for Fauci, he’s the designated “it.”
As I’ve reported many times, according to reputable scientists who have studied the origin of COVID, scientific evidence suggests that it’s overwhelmingly more likely that COVID reached humans the same way most viruses do, as spillovers from wildlife — in this case, via a thriving trade in China in animals susceptible to the virus.
Let’s look at the particular rabbit holes into which the subcommittee has burrowed to smear Fauci, as set forth during the 3½ hour congressional hearing Monday and in a 15-hour interrogation of Fauci by the subcommittee in January, a transcript of which was released over the weekend along with a memo that misrepresented and cherry-picked his answers.
The committee members are fixated on the notion that Fauci “suppressed” discussion of the possibility of a lab leak. Why would he do that? Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) proposed an answer.
“It’s obvious to everyone,” he said, “that you and your organization, NIH, had a lot to lose if the American people were to discover that COVID-19 most likely leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China, and that you … actually funded this research.”
The problem there is that, first, Fauci has to this day stated that he is open-minded about the origin of the pandemic.
More to the point, documentary evidence in the subcommittee’s possession shows that in the early days of the pandemic — January and February 2020, when scientists saw features of the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing COVID that they didn’t recognize as coming from nature — he urged them by email to report their concerns, if validated, to “the appropriate authorities,” meaning the FBI in the U.S. and MI-5 in Britain.
“It is inconceivable,” Fauci said in his opening statement to the subcommittee, “that anyone who reads this e-mail could conclude that I was trying to ‘cover up’ the possibility of a laboratory leak. “I was advocating for a prompt and thorough examination of the data and a totally transparent process.”
As it happened, further scientific scrutiny convinced the scientists that “any type of laboratory-based scenario” was not “plausible,” as they reported in Nature in March 2020. Their conclusion has held up over time.
The subcommittee Republicans tried hard to contradict the notion that the lab leak hypothesis is a “conspiracy theory.” Fauci played along, up to a point. He acknowledged that speculation about a lab leak is not in itself a conspiracy theory, but that doesn’t go for the elaborations that many of its adherents have made of it.
“What is a conspiracy theory is the kind of distortions of that particular subject, like, it was a lab leak and I was parachuted into the CIA like Jason Bourne and told the CIA that they should really not be talking about a lab leak,” he said. “That’s a conspiracy.” He was referring to a ludicrous accusation published in September, with great fanfare but no factual support whatsoever, by none other than Wenstrup.
The members spent an inordinate amount of time Monday on the question of whether Fauci’s institute funded so-called Gain of Function experiments in China, so a brief primer on this issue is in order.
“Gain of Function” has become something of a shibboleth for lab-leak adherents, the way “critical race theory” and ESG have become dog whistles for activists trying to undermine, respectively, the public educational system and environmental and social concerns for investors — in this case, giving the term a uniquely sinister connotation.
Generically, however, it refers to laboratory work that augments natural qualities of a microbe to facilitate experimental scrutiny or achieve a necessary goal, such as allowing microbes to produce a flu vaccine or bacteria to produce artificial insulin.
From 2014 to 2017, the U.S. suspended gain-of-function experiments to develop a standard identifying research that might produce “potential pandemic pathogens.” The lab-leak camp asserts that NIAID funded experiments that gave a virus in the Chinese lab the features necessary to make it infectious for humans.
The work that NIAID funded in China was analyzed according to that standard, and it was determined by NIH not to fall into that category, as Fauci has testified before. The subcommittee peppered Fauci with questions aimed at eliciting an admission that the NIAID-funded work qualified under the broad, pre-2017 definition, but he made clear — and is supported by the public record — that the work did not fall into that category.
Much of the hearing was devoted to trivialities. The Republicans blamed Fauci for imposing a regulation on Americans specifying that effective social distancing required a six-foot space between individuals. The GOP members maintain that no scientific research validates a six-foot standard, and cited a 2020 peer-reviewed paper as confirmation.
This assertion is self-refuting, however; the paper actually says that under some circumstances, six feet may not be enough. When Fauci was asked about the issue in January, he explained that coughing, sneezing, wind and other conditions could play into the efficacy of social distancing at any distance. At that point his questioner, GOP counsel Mitch Benzine, acknowledged, “I didn’t think that through, I guess.” But the Republicans masticated the issue endlessly Monday nonetheless.
In any case, Fauci never had the authority to impose public health mandates — whether for masks, social distancing, vaccination or anything else. These were a product of state and local policy decisions. To the extent they relied on government recommendations, those came from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a government body with which Fauci had no official connection.
The fundamental theme of Monday’s hearing was that Fauci should be blamed, even pilloried, for doing the best anyone could in dealing with a virus that no one had seen before, with means of transmission that were not understood for months or more and therapies that took more than a year to figure out.
It’s Fauci’s burden that ignorant and irresponsible politicians and their followers have chosen to turn their gunsights on him, for reasons that remain unclear.
“There have been everything from harassments by emails, texts, letters, of myself, my wife, my three daughters,” he said. “There have been credible death threats leading to the arrests of two individuals, and ‘credible death threats’ means someone who clearly was on his way to kill me. It’s required my having protective services essentially all the time.”
Is this how we wish to treat our most devoted public servants — by smearing them to the point that promising scientists choose not to place themselves in the firing line by entering the public health field?
At the close of the hearing, Wenstrup said his panel’s “goal is to take a hard look at the facts.” But there were few “facts” elicited Monday, just disinformation and character assassination.
Was that really the goal? There are no signs that the Republicans learned a thing from their 3½ -hour inquisition. In January, during Fauci’s interrogation, Rep. Michael Cloud (R-Texas) tweeted, “While many lost their loved ones, their businesses, and livelihoods, Dr. Fauci made millions and enjoyed the media spotlight. It was his most successful year.”
Monday, I asked Cloud if he still believed that. He replied, “I 100% stand by this tweet. Dr. Fauci received more money and glowing media coverage than he had ever received in his life, and if you can’t pick up that he both enjoyed it (and fed into it), then that is on you.”
Let’s give Fauci the last word on that. In January, he lamented that in 2020 he “became the villain number one of the extremists in the population,” which made it “one of the worst years of my life.” Shown the tweet, he remarked, “A congressman tweeted that?” When he was told, “Yeah.”
He replied, simply, “Jesus.”
The U.S. Space Force announced Friday it has awarded satellite contracts with a combined value of about $1.6 billion to Rocket Lab in Long Beach and to the Redondo Beach Space Park campus of Northrop Grumman.
The contracts by the Space Development Agency will fund the construction by each company of 18 satellites for a network in development that will provide warning of advanced threats such as hypersonic missiles.
Northrop Grumman has been awarded contracts for prior phases of the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture, a planned network of missile defense and communications satellites in low Earth orbit.
The contract announced Friday is valued at $764 million, and the company is now set to deliver a total of 150 satellites for the network.
The $805-million contract awarded to Rocket Lab is its largest to date. It had previously been awarded a $515 million contract to deliver 18 communications satellites for the network.
Founded in 2006 in New Zealand, the company builds satellites and provides small-satellite launch services for commercial and government customers with its Electron rocket. It moved to Long Beach in 2020 from Huntington Beach and is developing a larger rocket.
“This is more than just a contract. It’s a resounding affirmation of our evolution from simply a trusted launch provider to a leading vertically integrated space prime contractor,” said Rocket Labs founder and chief executive Peter Beck in online remarks.
The company said it could eventually earn up to $1 billion due to the contract by supplying components to other builders of the satellite network.
Also awarded contracts announced Friday were a Lockheed Martin group in Sunnyvalle, Calif., and L3Harris Technologies of Fort Wayne, Ind. Those contracts for 36 satellites were valued at nearly $2 billion.
Gurpartap “GP” Sandhoo, acting director of the Space Development Agency, said the contracts awarded “will achieve near-continuous global coverage for missile warning and tracking” in addition to other capabilities.
Northrop Grumman said the missiles are being built to respond to the rise of hypersonic missiles, which maneuver in flight and require infrared tracking and speedy data transmission to protect U.S. troops.
Beck said that the contracts reflects Rocket Labs growth into an “industry disruptor” and growing space prime contractor.
Business
California-based company recalls thousands of cases of salad dressing over ‘foreign objects’
A California food manufacturer is recalling thousands of cases of salad dressing distributed to major retailers over potential contamination from “foreign objects.”
The company, Irvine-based Ventura Foods, recalled 3,556 cases of the dressing that could be contaminated by “black plastic planting material” in the granulated onion used, according to an alert issued by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Ventura Foods voluntarily initiated the recall of the product, which was sold at Costco, Publix and several other retailers across 27 states, according to the FDA.
None of the 42 locations where the product was sold were in California.
Ventura Foods said it issued the recall after one of its ingredient suppliers recalled a batch of onion granules that the company had used n some of its dressings.
“Upon receiving notice of the supplier’s recall, we acted with urgency to remove all potentially impacted product from the marketplace. This includes urging our customers, their distributors and retailers to review their inventory, segregate and stop the further sale and distribution of any products subject to the recall,” said company spokesperson Eniko Bolivar-Murphy in an emailed statement. “The safety of our products is and will always be our top priority.”
The FDA issued its initial recall alert in early November. Costco also alerted customers at that time, noting that customers could return the products to stores for a full refund. The affected products had sell-by dates between Oct. 17 and Nov. 9.
The company recalled the following types of salad dressing:
- Creamy Poblano Avocado Ranch Dressing and Dip
- Ventura Caesar Dressing
- Pepper Mill Regal Caesar Dressing
- Pepper Mill Creamy Caesar Dressing
- Caesar Dressing served at Costco Service Deli
- Caesar Dressing served at Costco Food Court
- Hidden Valley, Buttermilk Ranch
A Stanford software engineering degree used to be a golden ticket. Artificial intelligence has devalued it to bronze, recent graduates say.
The elite students are shocked by the lack of job offers as they finish studies at what is often ranked as the top university in America.
When they were freshmen, ChatGPT hadn’t yet been released upon the world. Today, AI can code better than most humans.
Top tech companies just don’t need as many fresh graduates.
“Stanford computer science graduates are struggling to find entry-level jobs” with the most prominent tech brands, said Jan Liphardt, associate professor of bioengineering at Stanford University. “I think that’s crazy.”
While the rapidly advancing coding capabilities of generative AI have made experienced engineers more productive, they have also hobbled the job prospects of early-career software engineers.
Stanford students describe a suddenly skewed job market, where just a small slice of graduates — those considered “cracked engineers” who already have thick resumes building products and doing research — are getting the few good jobs, leaving everyone else to fight for scraps.
“There’s definitely a very dreary mood on campus,” said a recent computer science graduate who asked not to be named so they could speak freely. “People [who are] job hunting are very stressed out, and it’s very hard for them to actually secure jobs.”
The shake-up is being felt across California colleges, including UC Berkeley, USC and others. The job search has been even tougher for those with less prestigious degrees.
Eylul Akgul graduated last year with a degree in computer science from Loyola Marymount University. She wasn’t getting offers, so she went home to Turkey and got some experience at a startup. In May, she returned to the U.S., and still, she was “ghosted” by hundreds of employers.
“The industry for programmers is getting very oversaturated,” Akgul said.
The engineers’ most significant competitor is getting stronger by the day. When ChatGPT launched in 2022, it could only code for 30 seconds at a time. Today’s AI agents can code for hours, and do basic programming faster with fewer mistakes.
Data suggests that even though AI startups like OpenAI and Anthropic are hiring many people, it is not offsetting the decline in hiring elsewhere. Employment for specific groups, such as early-career software developers between the ages of 22 and 25 has declined by nearly 20% from its peak in late 2022, according to a Stanford study.
It wasn’t just software engineers, but also customer service and accounting jobs that were highly exposed to competition from AI. The Stanford study estimated that entry-level hiring for AI-exposed jobs declined 13% relative to less-exposed jobs such as nursing.
In the Los Angeles region, another study estimated that close to 200,000 jobs are exposed. Around 40% of tasks done by call center workers, editors and personal finance experts could be automated and done by AI, according to an AI Exposure Index curated by resume builder MyPerfectResume.
Many tech startups and titans have not been shy about broadcasting that they are cutting back on hiring plans as AI allows them to do more programming with fewer people.
Anthropic Chief Executive Dario Amodei said that 70% to 90% of the code for some products at his company is written by his company’s AI, called Claude. In May, he predicted that AI’s capabilities will increase until close to 50% of all entry-level white-collar jobs might be wiped out in five years.
A common sentiment from hiring managers is that where they previously needed ten engineers, they now only need “two skilled engineers and one of these LLM-based agents,” which can be just as productive, said Nenad Medvidović, a computer science professor at the University of Southern California.
“We don’t need the junior developers anymore,” said Amr Awadallah, CEO of Vectara, a Palo Alto-based AI startup. “The AI now can code better than the average junior developer that comes out of the best schools out there.”
To be sure, AI is still a long way from causing the extinction of software engineers. As AI handles structured, repetitive tasks, human engineers’ jobs are shifting toward oversight.
Today’s AIs are powerful but “jagged,” meaning they can excel at certain math problems yet still fail basic logic tests and aren’t consistent. One study found that AI tools made experienced developers 19% slower at work, as they spent more time reviewing code and fixing errors.
Students should focus on learning how to manage and check the work of AI as well as getting experience working with it, said John David N. Dionisio, a computer science professor at LMU.
Stanford students say they are arriving at the job market and finding a split in the road; capable AI engineers can find jobs, but basic, old-school computer science jobs are disappearing.
As they hit this surprise speed bump, some students are lowering their standards and joining companies they wouldn’t have considered before. Some are creating their own startups. A large group of frustrated grads are deciding to continue their studies to beef up their resumes and add more skills needed to compete with AI.
“If you look at the enrollment numbers in the past two years, they’ve skyrocketed for people wanting to do a fifth-year master’s,” the Stanford graduate said. “It’s a whole other year, a whole other cycle to do recruiting. I would say, half of my friends are still on campus doing their fifth-year master’s.”
After four months of searching, LMU graduate Akgul finally landed a technical lead job at a software consultancy in Los Angeles. At her new job, she uses AI coding tools, but she feels like she has to do the work of three developers.
Universities and students will have to rethink their curricula and majors to ensure that their four years of study prepare them for a world with AI.
“That’s been a dramatic reversal from three years ago, when all of my undergraduate mentees found great jobs at the companies around us,” Stanford’s Liphardt said. “That has changed.”
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