Thank You, Dr. Fauci
A movie review
Tony Fauci of NIAID has been the subject of many books and movies. With little room for nuance, most authors and directors are pro-Fauci or anti-Fauci. Thank You, Dr. Fauci is in the latter category. It’s self-described as “the high-stakes docu-thriller investigating COVID-19 origins, the dangers of biodefense, and a massive coverup.”
The first seven minutes of the 1.5-hour documentary are available on YouTube. In it, they revisit the comical notion of disinfecting groceries and Fauci’s coverup emails. Ironically, Fauci’s emails with Vincent Munster at RML promoted the grocery myth.
The movie’s title draws inspiration from the countless yard signs displayed during the pandemic. Thank You, Dr. Fauci became a rallying slogan for left-leaning Democrats, while right-leaning conservatives later vilified Fauci.
Though the movie is well-made, it doesn’t match Fauci's popularity. During the height of the pandemic, Fauci enjoyed an 80% approval rating among Americans. There was similar bipartisan support for the lockdowns and vaccines that Fauci promoted.
Directed by Jenner Furst, a registered Democrat who identifies as “very far left,” the Fauci film found a $10 home on the right-wing Tucker Carlson Network. Tucker interviewed Furst to promote his “docu-thriller.” Tucker (falsely) believes Wuhan was a military lab but previously called Fauci “The Patron Saint of Wuhan.”
Furst claimed the Chinese funded DARPA Defuse—to protect the American warfighter? That’s because Furst interviewed a group of loosely affiliated individuals called first-generation “lab leakers.” They believe Fauci is covering for China, not his own US virologists.
The first of many was Rutgers professor Richard Ebright, who describes himself as “Fauci’s worst nightmare.” I think they’re Best Friends Forever or BFFs. Ebright provided the director with his favorite paper, what he calls the “how-to manual” for creating SARS2. Ralph Baric’s 2015 UNC paper included Shi Zhengli’s name because she shared the SHC014 genome (something similar happened with RaTG13).
Everyone in the film ignores Baric’s testimony, in which he explained the Chinese could NOT copy his methods. Ebright discussed his “CREID-pro-quo” conspiracy. He claims Fauci bribed Kristian Andersen into silence by awarding him a multiyear U01 grant in May 2020. In reality, CREID funded Baric’s DARPA Defuse project in November 2019.
If interested, Ebright’s online meltdown from my Steve Hsu interview continues. Ironically, Ebright references the 2019 renewed R01, which was Baric’s TA1 in DARPA Defuse.
Former EcoHealth employee Andrew Huff called his former boss, Peter Daszak, a CIA spy. But Daszak didn’t work for the CIA; he spied for Fauci, who funded his DARPA Defuse project. Huff claims, “We traded the Chinese, the most advanced biotechnology in the world, for access to the laboratory so we could collect intelligence on it.” He continues the Ebright myth that Baric “traded” his $200M biotech for “access to China.” In reality, Fauci funded Shi Zhengli’s bat sample collection (TA1 Defuse grant = Fauci’s R01) so that she would share it with Baric.
Charles Rixey of DRASTIC mistakenly cited the date of Kristian Andersen’s infamous “looks engineered” email as Jan 27, 2020, instead of Jan 31. Why? To probably align it with the HIV vaccine narrative—but bats don’t catch AIDS! The DARPA cover page outlines what Defuse was about: vaccinating bats.
Rixey also fed the movie a Fauci myth, claiming Fauci wanted Kristian Andersen to call the FBI. Jenner doesn’t think that makes sense and asks, “Why wouldn’t Fauci call the FBI?” In reality, Andersen wanted to call the FBI on Jan 30, 2020, which kept Fauci awake until 3 AM on Feb 1, covering his tracks. Instead of calling the FBI, Fauci called Baric to shut up Andersen.
Former US CDC director Robert Redfield appears in his Baltimore medical office, where he treats patients with long Covid. A vocal opponent of gain-of-function (GoF) research and advocate of the lab leak theory, Redfield was excluded from the Feb 1 teleconference. He expresses bitterness about being sidelined by Fauci and Jeremy Farrar, despite considering Farrar as a friend. Redfield calls Fauci “the poster boy” for GoF, who “predicted the next pandemic by creating it.”
Baric and Daszak predicted COVID-19 in a 2018 document called DARPA Defuse. Charles Rixey, who once criticized Major Joseph Murphy, now promotes him. Most lab leak proponents disowned or ignored Murphy’s “American-created recombinant bat vaccine” letter. Even members of DRASTIC were unaware that Murphy had leaked the DARPA Defuse proposal to their group. I’m called a 2nd generation lab leaker who just fact-checked Murphy’s bat vaccine theory. For more on how this happened:
Columbia professor Neil Harrison appears memorably in a yellow hoodie. He remarks, “Scientists don’t generally like to criticize other scientists, and we don't like to use the F-word: Fraud.” Harrison adds, “Governments lie because they want to cover up government screwups,” and notes that DARPA Defuse would already have completed 50% of the work. Harrison asks, “Why does it seem surprising no one wanted to tell us about this?”
Fellow Columbia professor Jeffrey Sachs quips, “I came to understand some conspiracy theories are wrong, but many are right.” Sachs initially worked with Peter Daszak on the Lancet Commission, tasked with investigating the natural origins of Covid. However, Sachs later sacked Daszak after Ebright et al. exposed his conflict of interest. Sachs previously discussed sacking Daszak in this
interview.The prevailing lab leak conspiracy posits that the Wuhan Institute of Virology has secrets to hide. However, the movie’s focus, Fauci, engaged in the most concealment. Curiously, the film scarcely mentions Fauci’s top corona-virologist, Ralph Baric, instead alleging that Wuhan carried out his risky virology research.
After The Intercept published Fauci’s R01 and U01 grants (aka DARPA Defuse) in September 2021, Murphy leaked DARPA Defuse to Rixey. Scientists then contacted by The Intercept noted viruses designed in North Carolina could be used in China. “The mail is filled with little envelopes with plasmid dried on to filter paper that scientists routinely send each other,” said virologist Jack Nunberg of the University of Montana.
When surveyed for my book, Nunberg invoked aliens after the in vivo evidence shifted to Rocky Mountain Lab in Montana.
David Asher, a former Trump State Department official, claims Baric was a spook on the Chinese payroll. Instead, Baric was on the payroll of Fauci, who funded DARPA Defuse. Asher, relying on unverified rumors, implicated Shi Zhengli’s $10/hour postdocs as Patient Zero. Yet, no one has asked the obvious question: What was Fauci’s $82 million CREID contractor, Dani Anderson, doing in that Wuhan BSL4 lab?
Current FDA commissioner-elect Marty Malarky shared a humorous story about Fauci. During the 2014 Ebola scare, Fauci arranged for a sick but stable nurse to be flown from Dallas to Bethesda for a high-profile photo op. Donning a BSL4 space suit, Fauci invited journalists to capture the moment and showcased the already-recovering nurse to the media. Fauci dismissed the taxpayer costs, claiming the care was “all free.”
Ironically, Fauci’s $82M CREID grant was a response to the 2014 Ebola outbreak. By 2016, RML was studying the “development of a ‘disseminating’ Ebola vaccine to target these viruses in wild African great apes.” RML wanted “to achieve vaccine coverage in the inaccessible and hostile environment of African tropical forest regions, where application of conventional vaccines using baiting/individual darting strategies may prove more difficult, if not impossible.”
We recently proposed the use of a cytomegalovirus (CMV)-based ‘disseminating’ vaccine as one approach to achieve vaccine coverage in the inaccessible and hostile environment of African tropical forest regions, where application of conventional vaccines using baiting/individual darting strategies may prove more difficult, if not impossible.
The RML paper noted Ebola comes from “Fruit bats, which are believed to be one potential source of human infection, and direct contact or exposure to environments inhabited and frequented by bats has been associated with human outbreaks.”
Vaccinating individual bats is impossible, so Munster used a VSV vaccine in the 2018 DARPA project. By 2019, Munster combined Baric’s LAV bat vaccine with his transmissible technology. Munster couldn’t create a genome like SARS2; Baric couldn’t aerosolize an agent. Munster and Baric discussed the published results:
Calling Covid a self-disseminating bat vaccine from RML isn’t a conspiracy—it reflects the research they were pursuing as early as 2018. Munster’s Montana team had beaten Daszak’s Wuhan team for the DARPA Preempt project. By 2019, Fauci merged both the winning and losing DARPA teams to create SARS-CoV-2.
The Fauci movie is more conspiracy than red meat. It serves up right-wing meat but doesn’t cook the meat. It’s more interested in debating the bushmeat theory of AIDS origin than the US lab origins of Covid. It debates human vaccines but doesn’t realize the virus was an animal vaccine. The documentary raises more questions than it answers.
Judging by the numerous credited names, significant funding went into producing this movie. It’s shot with a trendy hand-held camera style but well-edited, engaging, and enjoyable. Director Furst waited until Fauci’s congressional hearings in June 2024 before finalizing the film. Near the end, Furst confronts fellow Democrat Rep. Jamie Raskin, after most lawmakers refused to entertain any accusations of wrongdoing by Fauci. Furst accuses Fauci of lying and warns Raskin, “We are losing the plot.”
I’m reminded of a line in my book: D.C. is just Hollywood for ugly people. Despite following the news since the AIDS pandemic, I was unfamiliar with Fauci before the pandemic. At the start of my research project, I didn’t like him, but by the end of my book, I came to admire him.
Unlike Ebright, Fauci never lied to Congress because “we have not funded gain-of-function research on this virus in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.” The GoF was in US labs. Fauci is the apex predator of the lab leak debate—outsmarting 8 billion people, millions of Americans, several hundred US congressmen, and even the dozens of lab leakers interviewed for Thank You, Dr. Fauci.
Furst tried to secure an interview with Fauci, but Fauci (and his lawyers) declined, citing his busy schedule working on his memoir, On Call. Perhaps Fauci should have replied, You’re Welcome.
Alternatively, consider donating $10 to
superior lab leak documentary. Though YouTube censored it, she protested and won!
The furin cleavage site (FCS), which Ralph Baric incorporated into his synthetic genome, should henceforth be referred to as the "Baric Fauci Quartret" because it could not have been constructed without Tony Fauci's finances and approvals.
The aforementioned fact may be disregarded by subsequent American administrations; it requires a significant amount of moral fortitude to acknowledge that the chicanery was self-invented.
American podcasters to please note.
World law enforcement agencies must arrest Walensky, Birx, Fauci, Daszak and all former and present DOD, CIA, CDC, NIH, WHO, FDA, HHS and big pharma and big tech. executives involved for crimes against humanity!
Fraud and homicide are ...not included in the total immunity from legal liability agreement under the PREP Act for the big Pharma criminals!
Nuremberg Code and RICO laws apply now! The DOJ better wake the Fk Up and get busy!