The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC’s) vaccine advisory committee will meet on Tuesday for a two-day session to lay out new recommendations, including a proposal to scale back current COVID-19 vaccine guidelines.
Dr. Lakshmi Panagiotakopoulos of the CDC is expected to present guidance on COVID-19 vaccine use for 2025–2026 and suggest the department adopt a "narrow" recommendation for it, "and only maintain this series for certain populations within these groups who we determine should be vaccinated."
When polled on April 3, a majority of advisors – 76% – expressed support for a risk-based, rather than universal, COVID-19 vaccination recommendation for the 2025–2026 schedule, up 10% higher from February polling.
The 70-page presentation outlines three possible policy options for COVID-19 vaccines, including a shift away from recommending annual shots for everyone over 6 months old.
Currently, annual COVID-19 shots are recommended for ages 6 months and older. One proposed policy option would continue the current universal policy, while another would recommend vaccines only for people at higher risk of severe illness, such as older adults, those with underlying health conditions, pregnant women and healthcare workers.
A third option would blend the two, keeping universal recommendations for people 65 and older but limiting shots for younger groups to those at higher risk.
"When initially presented with 2025–2026 COVID-19 vaccine policy options in November 2024, the Work Group appreciated pros and cons of both risk-based and universal vaccine recommendations," Panagiotakopoulos wrote. "At that time, there was not yet a consensus on what the recommendation for the 2025–2026 COVID-19 vaccine should be. The Work Group requested additional information to help inform the decision-making process on risk-factors for severe COVID-19, transmission and immunity, vaccine implementation and access, and cost-effectiveness."
The presentation will also propose how to define "increased risk," looking at both health factors and increased exposure, like living in long-term care facilities or working in high-contact jobs.
The two-day meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices will examine information for members to vote on as official recommendations, which will then be passed on to the CDC for consideration in June.
The end of the presentation will include discussion questions about the pros and cons of a universal vs. risk-based COVID-19 vaccine recommendation for 2025 to 2026. Key discussion points include whether any groups should be excluded from vaccination, what data is still needed to guide decisions, and whether a risk-based approach makes sense if most people are already considered "at risk."
According to the CDC, the vaccine committee's agenda will also include a session about the measles outbreak and an update "on literature related to reduced number of doses for HPV vaccine."
Members of the committee will vote on Wednesday on recommendations for the Meningococcal Vaccines, Meningococcal Vaccines VFC, RSV Adult and the Chikungunya Vaccines.
The meeting comes as Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is overseeing a major reorganization of the CDC. Plans include transferring non-infectious disease-related divisions to the Administration for a Healthy America to focus on chronic disease management. This move follows significant downsizing under President Donald Trump's directive, which has already reduced the CDC workforce by roughly 4,000 people.
EXCLUSIVE: The respective chairs of the Small Business Committee in both chambers of Congress are unveiling a plan to address the roughly 2 million "likely fraudulent" pandemic aid applications flagged in a recent government report.
Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa and Rep. Roger Williams of Texas, both Republicans, plan to introduce the SBA Fraud Enforcement Extension Act on Wednesday in hopes of corralling the alleged scofflaws who they say broke the law and prevented untold numbers of legitimate U.S. small businesses from receiving crucial aid.
The bill extends the statute of limitations to 10 years for fraud surrounding the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) and the Restaurant Revitalization Fund relief programs instituted in 2020.
In 2022, Williams, Ernst and other lawmakers sought to do the same to identify potential scofflaw violators of the Paycheck Protection Program.
A report from the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that the Biden-era Small Business Administration (SBA) either signed or guaranteed more than $1 trillion in loans to more than 10 million small businesses.
While it had instituted a four-step process to manage fraud, that plan reportedly faltered when the SBA inspector general was unable to fully probe two-thirds of the risk referrals because the agency didn’t provide either correct or complete information about those cases.
The GAO then made a formal recommendation to the SBA, which, according to the public watchdog’s website, remains "open" – and it appeared no action had at least been recorded.
The GAO also found that the fraud prevention process had not been fully implemented until "more than half" of aid programs’ funding had been approved.
"I will not allow criminals to run out the clock and escape justice simply because the Biden administration was asleep at the wheel," Ernst told Fox News Digital on Tuesday.
"Thousands of hardworking small businesses were deprived of desperately needed relief because swindlers, gang members, and felons cashing in on COVID drained the programs. Every single con artist who stole from taxpayers will be held accountable."
In Ernst’s home state, 1,800 restaurants reportedly qualified for SBA aid but never received it, prompting critics to question how much funding was diverted to fraudulent applicants instead of family-run eateries.
In Williams’ Lone Star State, federal aid allowed tens of thousands of restaurants to stay in business, but others told outlets like Houston PBS that such funding ran out before many could get back on their financial feet.
The Texas Restaurant Association told the station that 12,000 restaurants found themselves in danger of closing by 2022.
Hollywood celebrities had also received some of the SVOG funds and spent them on private jets and parties or cash for themselves, Business Insider reported.
"The SBA distributes millions of dollars to small businesses in need every year. However, where small business owners found the capital needed to stay afloat during the COVID-19 pandemic, bad actors saw the opportunity to defraud the government," Williams told Fox News Digital.
"It is imperative that every fraudster who stole and exploited taxpayer dollars during our nation’s utmost hour of need be prosecuted to the full extent of the law."
He added that as March marked five years after the first COVID lockdowns, an extension of the SBA and law enforcement’s ability to pursue fraudsters must be realized.
Fox News Digital reached out to the SBA for comment.
When asked about the discrepancies found in the GAO report, an SBA spokesperson told Fox News Digital that Administrator Kelly Loeffler has already taken action to enhance fraud prevention efforts.
"The SBA fully supports all efforts to crack down on fraud within its loan programs – in stark contrast to the last administration, which failed to investigate or address more than $200B in estimated pandemic-era fraud," Caitlin O’Dea said.
"[SBA] will continue working to hold pandemic-era fraudsters accountable."
U.S. Department of Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer announced on Monday that her department will return over $1 billion in unused COVID-era funding back to the taxpayer amid the Trump administration's push for the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to slash waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government.
In a press release, the Labor Department said $1.4 billion of unspent COVID funding will be "returned to taxpayers through the U.S. Department of Treasury’s General Fund" and added that "action" is "being taken to recover the remaining $2.9 billion."
"The roughly $4.3 billion was intended for states to use for temporary unemployment insurance during the pandemic," the press release states. "Instead, several states continued spending millions of dollars despite no longer meeting necessary requirements, which was uncovered in a 2023 audit conducted by the department’s Office of Inspector General."
The department explained in the press release that the funding originated from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act in March 2020 and that the program was meant to provide expanded unemployment insurance for Americans who were not able to work during the pandemic.
The program was closed in 2021, the department said, but the 2023 audit "found four states were allowed to access the funding ‘despite not meeting program requirements,’ totaling over $100 million in spending."
"There’s no reason leftover COVID unemployment funds should still be collecting dust," DeRemer told Fox News Digital in a statement. "I promised to look out for Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars, and we are delivering at the Department of Labor."
"Any money still sitting around for pandemic-era unemployment funds is a clear misuse of Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars," Chavez-DeRemer said in the press release, adding that she is "rooting out waste to ensure American Workers always come First."
Deputy Secretary of Labor Keith Sonderling said in a statement, "It’s unacceptable that billions of dollars went unchecked in a program that ended several years ago.
"In a huge win for the American taxpayer, we’ve clawed back these unused funds and will keep working to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse."
The announcement comes after DeRemer said in her first memo to the department after taking over last month that she plans to comply with Trump's executive orders and work with DOGE to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse.
"Under the leadership of President Trump, our focus remains on promoting job creation, enhancing workforce development, and ensuring safe working conditions, wages, and pensions so that every American has the opportunity to succeed," DeRemer said to employees in the memo. "I challenge each of you to actively engage with your teams to identify innovative solutions that can help us achieve our goals."
Chavez-DeRemer said that the Labor Department must align with the priorities of the Trump administration and "must focus on practicing fiscal responsibility, reducing unnecessary spending, and optimizing our resources to ensure that taxpayer dollars are utilized effectively."
Fox News Digital's Brooke Singman contributed to this report
A federal judge has dismissed a class-action lawsuit accusing former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his administration of being responsible for the deaths of their loved ones in nursing homes during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
U.S. District Court Judge Katherine Polk Failla wrote on Monday that although what happened was heartbreaking, the families’ legal arguments didn’t meet the standard for suing in federal court.
Cuomo, who was governor at the time, issued a March 2020 directive that initially barred nursing homes from refusing to accept patients who had tested positive for COVID-19. The directive was aimed at freeing up beds for overwhelmed hospitals.
More than 9,000 recovering coronavirus patients were released from hospitals into nursing homes under the directive, which was later rescinded amid speculation that it had accelerated outbreaks.
The eight plaintiffs in the case argued that their loved ones contracted COVID-19 in nursing homes and died as a result of the directive\. They accused Cuomo and his administration of being civilly liable for their deaths as well as being liable for failing to accurately report the number of nursing home deaths in New York state that resulted from the virus.
Failla, an Obama appointee, said the government wasn’t directly responsible for the deaths, even if its policies had tragic consequences.
"The Court’s sympathy for Plaintiffs and their loved ones simply cannot supplant governing law," Failla wrote.
She wrote that the plaintiffs' arguments did not meet the high bar of "shocking the public conscience" which is needed for this type of lawsuit and that officials acted during a fast-moving crisis.
The family members accused the defendants of violating the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment. They also brought state law claims including wrongful death and gross negligence under New York law.
Failla dismissed most of the claims on jurisdictional grounds and without prejudice.
"The Court does not question the sincerity or depth of Plaintiffs’ loss," she wrote. "But the law, as it currently stands, does not permit recovery against the Defendants for the harms alleged."
She also emphasized that the case was dismissed based on legal standards, not a denial that harm occurred.
Cuomo spokesperson Rich Azzopardi welcomed the ruling and noted it was the second such case to be tossed on similar grounds.
"Anytime this issue gets taken out of the press or the political arena and into the courts, the truth wins," Azzopardi said.
Azzopardi said the case follows three separate probes by the Justice Department as well as the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.
"Once again, justice has prevailed."
Cuomo, who is currently running for New York City Mayor, has previously said that the directive was based on Center for Diseases and Prevention (CDC) and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) guidance at the time.
A report released in March 2022 by the New York state comptroller found Cuomo's Health Department "was not transparent in its reporting of COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes" and it "understated the number of deaths at nursing homes by as much as 50%" during some points of the pandemic.
The former governor was grilled by Republican lawmakers last year about following which House Republicans subsequently recommended the Justice Department pursue criminal charges against him. They accused him of intentionally lying to Congress during the House Oversight Committee’s investigation into the excessive number of nursing home fatalities.
A state report later commissioned by Cuomo's successor, Gov. Kathy Hochul, found that while the policies on how nursing homes should handle COVID-19 were "rushed and uncoordinated," they were based on the best understanding of the science at the time.
Cuomo ultimately resigned from office in August 2021 following sexual harassment allegations, which he denies.
Fox News’ Greg Norman Bradford Betz, Maria Paronich and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
Federal law enforcement's hands are tied now that the statute of limitations for prosecuting fraud in COVID-era unemployment programs has expired.
While Congress extended the statute of limitations for pandemic-era business relief fraud in 2022, the window to prosecute fraud in individual relief programs closed Thursday.
"There's huge amounts of fraud that law enforcement officials are still trying to track down," said Andrew Moylan, a public finance policy expert at private philanthropy group Arnold Ventures.
"Every day that goes by from today, we lose the ability to prosecute fraud day by day. That's a huge problem, and this should be something that's an easy fix for Congress."
Despite opposition from 127 House Democrats, including Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the House passed a bipartisan bill earlier this month to extend the statute of limitations for pandemic unemployment fraud from five to 10 years. The move mirrored what lawmakers did for the Paycheck Protection Program and the Economic Injury and Disaster Loans program in 2022.
However, the Senate has yet to take up a companion bill needed to cement the extension, leading House lawmakers to call on their colleagues on Capitol Hill to make it a priority.
"We can’t afford to let these fraudsters get away with the largest heist of tax dollars in American history," Rep. Jason Smith, R-Mo., chairman of the House Ways & Means Committee, said Wednesday. "Not only do we have an obligation to taxpayers to recover as much of this money as possible — up to $135 billion — we also need to send a message that we will never falter in going after criminals who take advantage of our support for those in need. … There is no time to waste."
According to estimates from the Government Accountability Office, as much as $135 billion in pandemic unemployment insurance programs was lost to fraud during the pandemic. So far, only $5 billion, or less than 4%, has been recovered.
Between the Department of Justice and the Department of Labor, there are more than 2,500 uncharged criminal matters or ongoing field investigations related to COVID-era criminal unemployment fraud, according to a fact sheet released by Smith.
Unless the statute of limitations is extended by Congress, federal law enforcement will be unable to prosecute these cases.
Moylan noted the majority of unemployment fraud during COVID stemmed from "loopholes" so big "you could drive a truck through" them in the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program.
"They didn't have strict enough paperwork requirements, and, so, basically anybody could apply for it and just attest that they were engaged in self-employed activity … and claim significant amounts of unemployment benefits in the process," Moylan said. He also pointed out how people were applying for financial assistance under the names of dead people or prison inmates.
"In California, about a billion dollars worth of fraud was facilitated by making claims on behalf of prisoners in prisons in California," he said.
This month, GOP lawmakers, including Smith, called on their Senate colleagues to take up the House's legislation to extend the statute of limitations related to pandemic unemployment fraud.
When asked why he thought the Senate had not yet taken up a bill to extend the statute of limitations for pandemic unemployment fraud, Moylan posited that it was "an attention span thing."
"This hasn't been top of mind the way that nominations have been in the first part of the year for the Senate, or budget resolution, or now tax conversations, or, you know, whatever the scandal of the day may be," Moylan said.
"Those are the things that seem to dominate proceedings in the Senate. We now are in a situation where, if they don't act soon, we're going to lose the ability to prosecute more fraud in this program."
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., declared that U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for COVID-19 vaccines should be yanked, asserting that the jabs "are causing permanent harm and deaths."
"FDA approval for COVID-19 vaccines needs to be pulled and they need taken off the childhood vaccine schedule ASAP," she said Thursday in a post on X. "I’ve been saying this ever since they were created and my personal Twitter account was permanently banned for my outspoken stance against the vaccines until Elon Musk bought Twitter, changed it to X, and restored my account along with thousands of people who were censored and silenced."
The child and adolescent immunization schedule on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website includes COVID-19 vaccine recommendations for children 6 months old and above.
Greene contends that the jabs should never have been approved in the first place.
"COVID-19 vaccines should have never received approval and they’ve known the entire time how bad the side effects are and deaths caused by them. It’s time to do the right thing. Stop the COVID-19 vaccines," she declared in her post.
But the CDC notes, "COVID-19 vaccination is recommended for everyone ages 6 months and older in the United States for the prevention of COVID-19. There is currently no FDA-approved or FDA-authorized COVID-19 vaccine for children younger than age 6 months. CDC recommends that people stay up to date with COVID-19 vaccination."
"Cases of myocarditis and pericarditis have rarely been observed following receipt of COVID-19 vaccines used in the United States," the CDC indicates.
"Evidence from multiple monitoring systems support a causal association for mRNA COVID-19 vaccines (Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech) and myocarditis and pericarditis. Cases have occurred most frequently in adolescent and young adult males within 7 days after receiving the second dose of an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine (Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech); however, cases have also been observed in females and after other doses."
As the U.S. nears the five-year mark since nationwide lockdowns turned toilet paper into a hot commodity, Fox News Digitaltook a look back at some of the most controversial mandates – those that sparked debate – and, to some, defied logic.
Former NIAID Director Anthony Fauci was a ubiquitous sight throughout the pandemic, during the administrations of both Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
The octogenarian allergist, who had been with the government since 1968 and appointed head of the NIH’s infectious disease arm by former President Ronald Reagan, was often lambasted for contradictory or questionable medical orders.
Fauci drew heat for apparent contradictions in mask-wearing orders, with critics often locking onto the certainty with which the Brooklynite announced each countervailing development.
In March 2020, Fauci told "60 Minutes" about "unintended consequences" of wearing masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
"People keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face," he said, suggesting germs and viruses could be spread by too much fidgeting.
Soon after, and for most of the rest of the pandemic, Fauci was adamant that Americans must wear masks nearly at all times in public.
He raised eyebrows further when he told CNBC it might be time to double up on masks – a stance that clashed with claims from right-wing physicians who warned that excessive face coverings could obstruct breathing.
"If you have a physical covering with one layer, you put another layer on it just makes common sense that it likely would be more effective," Fauci said.
National Review writer David Harsanyi balked at the order at the time, quipping, "No, thanks, Dad."
Current Secretary of State Marco Rubio also commented at the time about Fauci’s varied orders:
"Dr. Fauci is a very good public-health official. His job is to advise policymakers and inform the public, but his job is not to decide what we can do, where we can go or which places can open or close. His job is not to mislead or scare us into doing the [supposed] right things," the Floridian said.
Pennsylvania’s most visible shutdown-opposing lawmaker, who later ran for governor on a related "Walk as Free People" slogan, regularly quipped in public remarks at people he would see driving alone in their cars on Interstate 81 while wearing a mask.
"You can’t make this stuff up," Sen. Doug Mastriano often repeated.
New York City is known for its pizza, bagels, heros and chopped cheese – but western New York holds another food item just as dear – the Buffalo wing.
The COVID-19 lockdowns proved the love upstaters have for their chicken apps after then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo laid out what "substantive food" a watering hole has to offer in order for patrons to go out for a drink.
"To be a bar, you have to have food available. Soups, sandwiches – More than just hors d'oeuvres, chicken wings; you had to have some substantive food," he said.
New Yorkers used to sloshing Frank’s Red Hot on their chicken became Red Hot themselves and lambasted the governor for appearing to define their beloved dish as less than a meal.
The outrage led to a New York state communications official later tweeting a diagrammed-sentence breakdown of Cuomo’s comments, seeking to illustrate that the clause "more than just hors d’oeuvres" was an interjection and that "chicken wings" were to be associated with the "soups, sandwiches" mentioned – but the damage had been done.
In return, bars began charging a dollar or so each for a slice of deli meat, a handful of croutons or a single french fry in order to allow their patrons an end-round around the edict and have a cold one.
In neighboring Pennsylvania, Gov. Tom Wolf instituted a similar ban – requiring a meal to be purchased before alcohol could be served. The state police’s bureau of liquor enforcement patrolled towns to enforce the mandate and other regulations, warning small-town saloons that their liquor licenses were on the line.
When many restaurants were closed for eat-in dining in Pennsylvania, several lawmakers held a demonstration in Lebanon outside what was then the Taste of Sicily Italian Restaurant.
Several area lawmakers – state Reps. Russ Diamond, Frank Ryan and the late Dave Arnold – joined Mastriano and restaurant manager Mike Mangano to decry "stop the spread" orders that cut off family restaurants’ income.
Flanked by the others, Diamond read from Article I Sec. 2 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, which stated "all power is inherent in the people… and they have at all times an inalienable… right to alter, reform or abolish their government in such matter they see fit."
"That means," he said, "You can exercise your constitutional right to abolish the interminable b---- of this government, which happens to be the governor’s obtuse, stupid and bass-ackward orders."
In Pennsylvania, Wolf and Health Secretary Rachel Levine were ubiquitous on the airwaves with their lockdown provisions and orders – from traffic-light color-coded maps instructing which counties’ residents could have varying levels of freedom, to Levine’s daily warning on TV to "stay home, stay calm, stay safe."
Early in the shutdown period, the Wolf administration utilized a seven-decade-old state law aimed at blunting a syphilis outbreak as legal backing for some of their orders.
In April 2020, a York woman was charged under that statute when she tried to quell her cabin fever with a Sunday drive.
Anita Shaffer told local media at the time she had been returning home from a drive when she passed police parked in the town of Yoe.
Originally stopped for a broken taillight, Shaffer was ultimately issued a $202 ticket for violating the Disease Prevention and Control Act of 1955, which was described to her as the "stay-at-home-act" in force at the time – to which she pleaded "not guilty."
Current Pennsylvania Attorney General David Sunday – a Republican who was then York County’s district attorney – later expressed opposition to the state’s lockdown orders and told the York Daily Record he wouldn’t prosecute businesses Wolf’s classifications deemed "nonessential" if they opened before Harrisburg said so.
Police said after the incident: "Sunday drives are not essential travel."
Drivers on the state’s highways also encountered other unique COVID order roadblocks.
Mastriano spoke at several demonstrations in Harrisburg, Lancaster and beyond, and recounted some such experiences.
Pennsylvania rest areas were briefly closed to "stop the spread," he noted, adding how incredulous it was to come upon an Interstate 81 rest area on his commute, see it barricaded closed, and then see several big-rigs parked dangerously close to traffic on the shoulder in a line for the ensuing mile.
Republicans in Pennsylvania later drafted a constitutional amendment ballot initiative seeking to claw back some of the restrictions. Some proponents cited what they called a biblical irony in the randomly-assigned bill number – SB 836 – which echoed John 8:36’s admonition "If Christ sets you free, you are free indeed."
Another stop-the-spread order that led to public outcry affected children more than those of-age to travel or drink.
Cities from California to New Jersey began dumping sand into skate parks, playgrounds, and public areas to prevent groups or crowds from the recreation sites.
Tons of sand were dumped into public skate parks in Los Angeles, which enraged professional and amateur shredders alike.
In April 2020, skaters were so fed up with the city of Los Angeles that they brought their own shovels to clear sand from the iconic Venice Beach skate park.
Professional skater Paul Rodriguez told "The Undefeated" at the time that the move was "a little stronger than [the city] needed to do."
"I was like, damn, that’s aggressive… But as a human, I'm like, we're going through a pandemic, I mean, we've got to do what we got to do," Rodriguez said.
Skate "bowls" in San Clemente, California, were also filled in with 37 tons of sand after skaters ignored several "No Trespassing" signs.
In Pittsburgh, skaters climbed over closed fences and cut locks, according to the public works department, when local media asked about its own decision to fill the parks with sand.
In other cities, public basketball hoops were removed from backboards, while 2x4s were nailed to cover other baskets in an effort to prevent people from congregating.
While lockdown policies in many states had either intentional or unintentional consequences on the consumption of alcohol, the Northeast was incongruently affected by such a change in social behavior.
In August 2021, as some states began slowly slackening some of their orders, others retained a tough stance to "stop the spread."
Virginia, Pennsylvania and several other states employ "state stores" or "ABC" outlets to sell alcohol that is effectively solely available from the state government.
One state that doesn’t is Delaware. With its regional tax-free shopping mecca in Christiana and the availability of liquor in mega-stores like Total Wine, it is often a draw for higher-tax or socially-stricter states around it.
COVID-19 made the First State no different, as Pennsylvania continued to keep its state stores closed, Philadelphians and others tried to find new ways to get their alcohol legally.
Just as Pennsylvania’s side of its state lines is dotted with fireworks outlets geared toward out-of-state visitors, a liquor superstore stands just yards inside Delaware at I-95 and DE-92.
The store began seeing a major influx of out-of-state patrons who snuck across from Marcus Hook – until Delaware instituted a travel ban and then-Gov. John Carney’s administration gave police authority to pull over any out-of-state-tagged vehicle.
The parking lot of the Total Wine was a hub for such activity, as thirsty Pennsylvanians converged on the market to purchase their drinks of choice and zip home.
DSP Cpl. Michael Austin responded to the situation in a statement to the Delco Times:
"The primary intent and goal of the Delaware State Police is to uphold their sworn duties by providing information to the public that we serve, in order to gain voluntary compliance with the mandates, and to promote, and further ensure public safety and health."
Similar dynamics occurred across state lines around the country as well, but not to the high-profile nature media-wise of the "Naamans Road checkpoint."
This story discusses suicide. If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, please contact the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
As the fifth anniversary of COVID-19 lockdowns approaches, bipartisan lawmakers and medical professionals across the country are rallying behind a bill that would address a growing crisis in the healthcare field.
Dr. Lorna Breen was chief of the ER department at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. Known by colleagues as a tireless worker who cared about patients and protocol, Breen committed suicide while on a short break in Virginia in the midst of the pandemic to get a break from the high-pressure world of emergency medical care.
A New York Times story quoted Breen’s father as calling her death a "casualty" of the pandemic and said she had no history of mental illness, but had seemed "detached" as of late.
Proponents of the Lorna Breen Health Care Provider Protection Reauthorization Act told Fox News Digital that the mental strain, burnout, and stress of working in a high-pressure, life-saving field demand stronger support systems.
A recent study from a North Carolina healthcare group showed that more than half of doctor-respondents said they wouldn’t go into the primary care field if they could "do it all over again."
According to its proponents, the Lorna Breen Act provides billions of dollars in resources to help prevent suicide, burnout, and mental and behavioral health conditions among healthcare professionals.
Two longtime ER physicians who are leading the charge on the nongovernmental side of things spoke with Fox News Digital this week.
Dr. Randy Pilgrim – chief medical officer for SCP Health – and Dr. Bentley Tate, the emergency room company’s chief wellness officer – both have decades of experience working in the high-pressure field and said that now, as the U.S. looks back at the COVID-19 pandemic, is the time to bring this issue to the fore.
SCP Health works across 35 states and is a leading voice on mental healthcare for physicians, they jointly said.
Doctor wellness must be a major priority, and is often overlooked, Pilgrim said, noting that patients come to doctors to better their own health, and that it is, rightly for the patient, a one-way street in that regard.
"Patients can't be faulted for the fact that when they come to their clinician, their physician or other clinician, they really are thinking mostly about their own health and how they can improve that," he said.
"For many, many centuries there has been this phrase ‘Physician, heal thyself’, which is variably interpreted. But in the context of this, it means the healthier the doctor is, the more available they are for the patients themselves."
"So, as mental health issues became more and more prevalent, more and more transparent, and more and more acknowledged that the stresses of the healthcare workforce are significant. It became very clear that destigmatizing that as well as providing resources to help, that was a very real phenomenon," Pilgrim added.
"Patients don't come to us saying, ‘Doctor, are you OK?’ But at the end of the day, they want to know that we are [well] and it's our responsibility to be that way."
Mental health strains on physicians were largely an "underground phenomenon" until COVID-19 put physicians’ well-being into the forefront of the news.
During the pandemic, gurneys were rolled out in front of overburdened urban hospitals, and physicians, both rural and otherwise, were working long shifts, resulting in burnout and strain.
"Physician suicide is the far end and very unfortunate far end of that spectrum," Tate said.
"But there are so many people who are frustrated, who are weary. And the reality is, we all lose when a physician retires ten years before they thought they were – or 10 years into their career, with so many years of training [goes and] transitions into where they’re not seeing patients directly, but some other aspect of health care because they just got so frustrated or worn down or frankly, in a bad mental state."
When doctors step away from patients for such personal reasons, the entire healthcare system loses, Tate said. When physicians are well and in the right frame of mind, patients benefit.
Pilgrim, who has also worked directly to push for Lorna Breen Act legislation, added that there is bipartisan acknowledgment that U.S. doctors need Congress’ full support.
"At the end of the day, people realize this is about helping clinicians, but mainly so that they can help patients – But this is a patient-centered act. So, that's really easy to unify around," he said.
With the advent of DOGE scrutinizing every dollar the feds spend, there is also a new focus on how to pay for things like this act, Pilgrim added.
"People are looking for relatively small amounts of dollars that will have a relatively large and outsized impact," he said.
"And this actually is another thing that unifies congressmen and women is that this is a relatively small money in the grand scheme of things. And if you can impact just a single physician and make them him or her better, the hundreds to thousands of patients that benefit from that becomes an exponential impact."
Sens. Tim Kaine, D-Va. and Roger Marshall, R-Kan. – a doctor himself – are leading the Senate version of the bill, but did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., who is joined by Reps. Jennifer Kiggans, R-Va., and Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., on the House version said Thursday that the act is truly bipartisan and that she will work hard to pass it so that "doctors, nurses, physicians, and all healthcare providers can take care of themselves as they care for their patients."
"Healthcare professionals dedicate their lives to serving their patients, often at the expense of their own physical and emotional well-being, and ensuring they have the resources to stay healthy is one of my top priorities," Dingell said.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is reportedly gearing up to cancel dozens of research grants about vaccine hesitancy by the end of the month, just four years after the Biden administration poured millions of dollars into combating COVID-19 vaccine skepticism.
According to an internal email obtained by The Washington Post this week with the subject line "required terminations — 3/10/25," the agency had "received a new list… of awards that need to be terminated, today. It has been determined they do not align with NIH funding priorities related to vaccine hesitancy and/or uptake."
More than 40 grants are on the chopping block, according to the Post's report, and when notifying researchers of the NIH's termination, they should be told "not to prioritize research activities that focuses gaining scientific knowledge on why individuals are hesitant to be vaccinated and/or explore ways to improve vaccine interest and commitment."
Fox News Digital has reached out to NIH and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for comment.
The report comes four years after the previous Biden administration spent millions to combat "misinformation," particularly related to the COVID-19 vaccine, in 2021. A November report by Open the Books, a government watchdog group, found that at least $267 million was spent on research grants and contracts related to "misinformation" or "disinformation."
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) allocated more than $17 million over three weeks in February 2021, CBS News reported at the time, to 15 organizations advocating for Black, Hispanic, Asian and Native American populations. Progressive groups UnidosUS and National Urban League were granted $3.2 million and $2 million, respectively.
In a now-archived CDC page titled "Risk for COVID-19 Infection, Hospitalization, and Death By Race/Ethnicity" in December 2022, the department reported that Black people are more likely to contract COVID-19 than White people.
"Sure enough, the feds have spent at least $127 million in grants specifically targeted to study the spread of 'misinformation' — or to help people ‘overcome’ it, so to speak — by persuading them to go along with COVID-related public health recommendations and mandates," the Open the Books report said.
It's unclear if the cancelation of grants came from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., but the Trump administration has been highly critical of the previous administration's spending. Tech billionaire Elon Musk, head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has also been taking a scalpel to DEI-related funding amid President Donald Trump's effort to downsize the government workforce.
Kennedy has been focusing on reforming food policies, expanding healthcare coverage and holding big pharmaceutical companies accountable since his controversial Senate confirmation last month.
Five years after the first cases of COVID-19 were reported, the World Health Organization is still reporting deaths from the virus.
More than 3,000 people died in the last month, adding to the more than 7 million deaths since the pandemic began.
In the fall of 2019, many of the top stories for U.S. news outlets had to do with China.
"I have a good relationship with China. We’ll see what happens, but I’m very happy right now," President Donald Trump said on Nov. 19, 2019 amid trade negotiations with Beijing. "If we don’t make a deal with China, I’ll just raise the tariffs even higher."
On the other side of the globe, protesters in Hong Kong were objecting to China’s interference in the region’s government. Trump signed a bill supporting the pro-democracy demonstrations. Back in Washington, the Smithsonian National Zoo’s beloved panda, Bei Bei, was preparing to move to a new habitat in central China, but in the background, a much bigger story was taking place.
Also, in the fall of 2019, scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology were studying how mice responded to SARs and MERs-related coronaviruses. A National Intelligence Director report noted the lab maintains one of the world’s largest repositories of bat samples.
It stated, "Teams separately used transgenic mouse models to better understand how the viruses infect humans as well as related vaccine and therapeutics research."
"This laboratory that worked on bat coronaviruses was undertaking work, which on the face of it was quite important for understanding these viruses, but had some risks," said Stanford microbiology professor David Relman in January 2020.
During that time, several researchers at the institute fell ill with cold or flu-like symptoms, but none were severe enough to be hospitalized.
"Some of their symptoms were consistent with but not diagnostic of Covid-19," the intelligence report stated. The intelligence community also noted that it was unclear if those illnesses were linked to the virus that would soon spread around the world.
By December, China’s stock market was rising on hopes of a trade deal with the U.S., but the local economy in Wuhan was facing a major threat. Health officials were growing concerned about a new viral pneumonia that was not responding to standard treatments. Twenty-seven cases had been confirmed, seven of which were critical.
Most of the patients had a recent history of exposure to wildlife animals at the Huanan Market, where poultry, snakes, bats and other farm animals were sold. Wuhan health officials claimed the wet market was where the virus originated. However, at least 13 of the first 41 hospitalizations had no link to the marketplace, according to an article by Chinese researchers published in the Lancet.
"That's a big number, 13, with no link," Daniel Lucey, an infectious disease specialist at Georgetown University, told Science in January 2020. "The virus came into that marketplace before it came out of that marketplace."
All U.S. intelligence agencies assess both a natural and laboratory-associated origin remain plausible sources of the virus’ origin. The Energy Department, the FBI and the CIA believe a laboratory-associated incident was the most likely cause of the first human infection.
"Laboratory accidents happen everywhere there are humans. Humans are fallible. So, it's absolutely reasonable to think that some other laboratory also had an accident," Relman said.
In late December, the Wuhan Institute of Virology isolated and identified the virus from patient samples. The information available to U.S. intelligence officials indicates this to be the first time researchers at the institute had access to the virus’ gene sequence.
On New Year's Eve in the U.S., Trump rang in 2020 at his annual Mar-a-Lago party and was optimistic over his negotiations with China.
"We’re very excited about trade," the president said. "I’ll be going, at some point, to Beijing, to be with President Xi. We have a great relationship. And we’ll be doing something reciprocal."
Scientists in Wuhan were growing even more concerned about the new virus. Dozens of individuals with suspected cases had been isolated in a designated hospital. The World Health Organization became aware through a media statement from the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission. It warned of a pneumonia of an unknown cause.
During the first days of 2020, life around the world and in most parts of China, seemed normal. However, in Wuhan, the Huanan Market had been shut down, and World Health Organization officials were taking a closer look at the cases.
"There are many unreported cases in China. There's also a number of cases in Hong Kong that haven't been reported," Gatestone Institute senior fellow Gordon Chang told Lou Dobbs in January 2020. "What's happened in Hong Kong and the protest, people don't want to go out so it has been quiet over the last week or so. But I think that this is really the fear over the contagion."
What was now called the 2019 Novel Coronavirus had claimed its first victim by the time Trump inked phase one of his trade deal with China.
"Right now, our relationship with China is the best it’s ever been," Trump said at the signing ceremony.
Cases from outside of China were now accumulating. Thailand and Japan had confirmed cases of SARS-CoV-2. Shortly after, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began screening passengers on direct and connecting flights from Wuhan.
"The bottom line is this is a very rare virus. The number of people who have been infected or exposed is very small," Lenox Hill Hospital emergency room Dr. Robert Glatter said as the flight screenings began.
Days later, health officials confirmed the first U.S. case in Washington state but insisted the virus was still a low risk to the public.
"We're very happy to say that he is in satisfactory condition and as of this moment is being, is very helpful in us identifying particular people that he may have been in contact with," Gov. Jay Inslee, D-Wa, said after the case was announced.
More cases began to accumulate across the U.S. and around the world. In Wuhan, 11 million people were placed under lockdown orders.
"It has not yet become a global health emergency. It may yet become one," World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said as Wuhan closed its city limits.
Shoppers raced to gather essentials before the lockdown officially took place. Roads, train stations and airports were empty. Other locations throughout China were also closed to the public, and Chinese New Year celebrations were scaled back.
Around the world, more countries implemented travel restrictions from China. Many evacuated citizens from the country before the virus spread further.
By mid-February, 1,013 people had died from the virus now known as COVID-19. It had officially killed more people than the 2002-2003 SARS outbreak, when 774 people died.
The U.S. is "rated number one" for epidemic preparedness, Trump told White House reporters on Feb. 26, 2020. "We've had tremendous success, tremendous success beyond what people would have thought. Now at the same time you do have some outbreaks in some countries. Italy and various countries are having some difficulty."
Italy was the new epicenter for the virus. By mid-March, 114 countries had reported more than 118,000 cases and more than 4,000 deaths.
"In the days and weeks ahead, we expect to see the number of cases, the number of deaths and the number of effected countries climb even higher," Ghebreyesus said. "We have formed the assessment that COVID-19 can be characterized as a pandemic. Pandemic is not a word to use lightly or carelessly."
FIRST ON FOX: House Republicans are urging President Donald Trump to use his executive power to block hospitals from denying organ transplants for people not vaccinated against COVID-19.
Rep. Michael Rulli, R-Ohio, who is leading the letter, said he was partially moved to act after Vice President JD Vance’s 12-year-old relative was reportedly denied a heart transplant over her COVID-19 vaccination status.
"Over the past week, it has come to light that multiple desperate Americans have been denied life-saving organ transplants due to their COVID-19 vaccination status," the letter said. "This outrageous denial of care has affected some of our most vulnerable citizens – including a child from Indiana and a veteran from Ohio."
Earlier this month, he and Rep. Erin Houchin, R-Ind., introduced a bill to stop federal funds from going to any entity that denies someone treatment based on COVID-19 vaccination status.
"President Trump has done such a great job recently on executive orders," Rulli told Fox News Digital in an interview. "And I am asking President Trump if he sees this, to please do an executive order… because you could save someone's life today."
"The timing is everything. If we don't get this done, people's lives could be at risk."
The letter, signed by Rulli, Houchin and five other House Republicans, cited Trump’s executive orders ending COVID-19 vaccine mandates in schools and reinstating military service members who were discharged for not getting the vaccine.
"The same principles apply here. These reckless mandates, implemented under the Biden Administration, do more harm than good," the letter said.
"With your leadership, our nation could return to a time when our brave and talented medical professionals can save lives freely, unburdened by bureaucratic barriers that endanger our most vulnerable citizens."
The girl’s mother, Jeneen Deal, told the Daily Mail that giving her daughter the vaccine would violate the family’s religious beliefs.
When reached for comment on the lawmakers' letter by Fox News Digital via Facebook Messenger, Deal beseeched them to include the influenza vaccine in their request to Trump.
"Just removing the covid is just a start. The flu and covid are keeping her from being on the list," Deal wrote.
Vance said in comments to the Daily Mail that he would try to help.
"I guess it’s been circulating on social media, but I was made aware of a couple days ago, and we’re trying to dig in and trying to help, obviously, as much as possible," he said.
Fox News Digital reached out to spokespeople for Trump and Vance for comment, but did not hear back.
FIRST ON FOX: Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. paused a multimillion-dollar contract from the Biden era to create a new COVID-19 vaccine, Fox News Digital has learned.
"While it is crucial that the Department and Health and Human Services (HHS) support pandemic preparedness, four years of the Biden administration’s failed oversight have made it necessary to review agreements for vaccine production, including Vaxart’s," Kennedy said in comment provided to Fox News Digital Tuesday.
"I look forward to working with Vaxart and medical experts to ensure this work produces safe, effective, and fiscal-minded vaccine technology."
Kennedy issued a 90-day stop work order Friday related to HHS' contract with American biotech company Vaxart Inc., which is working to develop a new COVID-19 vaccine that would be taken orally. The stop work order comes as 10,000 individuals were slated to begin clinical trials on Monday.
The trial is only paused, not terminated, with Kennedy and other health officials set to examine the study's initial findings over the next 90 days before deciding on next steps.
The creation of a new COVID-19 vaccine was part of the Biden administration's massive $4.7 billion Project NextGen initiative, which was launched in 2023 and works to streamline the development of new vaccines. The Vaxart vaccine specifically was funded through an agreement with the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), which is a department within the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response under the HHS umbrella.
BARDA obligated roughly $460 million to Vaxart's development of the new vaccine, with a total of $240 million already authorized for the preliminary study, Fox Digital learned.
A recent modification to the contract would have allowed Vaxart to invoice BARDA for the remaining roughly $230 million for clinical trials, but the stopwork order prevents the biotech company from invoicing BARDA until further notice. Vaxart, however, can still invoice HHS related to medical monitoring of individuals who took part in an initial round of trials, Fox Digital learned.
The announcement comes just under two weeks after Kennedy was confirmed and sworn in as the nation's 26th chief of HHS. The same day he was sworn in, President Donald Trump signed an executive order creating the Make America Healthy Again Commission, which is led by Kennedy to investigate and address "the root causes of America’s escalating health crisis."
The commission initially will focus its investigations into childhood chronic diseases, such as autism.
Kennedy, who ran for president as a Democrat in the 2024 cycle before ultimately dropping out and endorsing Trump, has come under fire from critics for an alleged anti-vaccine stance, which he has repeatedly denied, including during his Senate confirmation hearings earlier in 2025.
"I worked for years to raise awareness about the mercury and toxic chemicals in fish," Kennedy said during his hearing before the Senate Finance Committee in January of his vaccine stance. "And nobody called me anti-fish. And I believe that … that vaccines play a critical role in healthcare. All of my kids are vaccinated. I've read many books on vaccines. My first book in 2014, a first line of it is ‘I am not anti-vaccine’ and last line is ‘I am not anti-vaccine.’ Nor am I the enemy of food producers. American farms are the bedrock of our culture, of our politics, of our national security."
COVID-19 vaccines were mandated across the federal government under the Biden administration, while many businesses in the private sector also required employees to get the vaccine, which sparked widespread backlash and protests as some employees lost their jobs for bucking the orders.
Trump signed a few executive orders related to the previous administration's mandates upon his return to the Oval Office in January, including reinstating military members who were fired for refusing the vaccine and another EO that prohibits federal funding for vaccine mandates in schools.
EXCLUSIVE: The top Republican on the House Committee on Small Business is calling for President Donald Trump’s new Small Business Administration (SBA) chief to do what he says the Biden administration wouldn’t – and provide answers on alleged taxpayer-funded electioneering in swing states and the failure to actively recoup fraudulent or misappropriated COVID relief funds.
Rep. Roger Williams, R-Texas, chair of the House Committee on Small Business, told Fox News Digital Thursday his committee has sounded the alarm on how the Biden administration "moved the [SBA] far away from its intended mission: serving Main Street America."
Williams recalled how the House Small Business Committee had been "stonewalled" in multiple requests for information on how the SBA was working under a 2021 Biden executive order on "promoting access to voting" when it forged a "memorandum of understanding (MOU)" with Michigan election officials.
In the committee’s letter to SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler being sent later Thursday, the panel will note Trump rescinded the Biden order, but remains "deeply troubled by the lack of transparency from the Biden-Harris SBA and looks forward to working with you to determine what impact this may have had on the 2024 election."
The letter will also alert Loeffler to several Biden-era rule changes they believe present an "immediate threat" to its small-business-lending portfolio.
As for allegations the previous SBA leadership punted on recovering misallocated COVID aid, the letter invokes Trump’s DOGE endeavors and floats a project to investigate fraud and recover the funds, which they characterize as a prime example of how Loeffler can assist that cause.
"It is estimated that across the SBA’s COVID-19 lending programs, approximately $200 billion went to potentially fraudulent recipients," the letter said, while also noting the Biden SBA "unilaterally decided" to suspend delinquent disaster loan and PPP collections for loans under $100,000.
"The Committee is interested in determining the Biden-Harris SBA’s rationale for this decision and seeks to understand the impact this had on the ability of law enforcement to track and prosecute fraud," the committee wrote.
Last year, Williams issued a rare committee subpoena for staff travel calendars and more information from the SBA seeking to discern whether or how taxpayer money was potentially being spent to register voters in heavily Democratic areas in Michigan under the MOU.
Democrats on the panel, however, have long criticized the GOP majority’s machinations:
"Unfortunately, with [these Michigan/MOU] subpoenas, Republicans have rejected these principles to pursue a partisan inquiry," ranking member Nydia Velazquez, D-N.Y., told Fox News Digital.
While the Biden-era SBA maintained they did nothing wrong, Williams persisted in trying to conduct congressional oversight of the alleged electioneering. Similar could be said for the committee’s efforts to probe the SBA’s position on recouping the problematic COVID aid amounts.
"The Committee looks forward to working with Administrator Loeffler and the Trump Administration to return credibility and transparency to the SBA," Williams said Thursday.
"Together, we will ensure small businesses have a voice in our government and bring the Golden Age of America to Main Street."
President Donald Trump's nominees to run the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are part of a group of scientists who just launched a new research journal focused on spurring scientific discourse and combating "gatekeeping" in the medical research community.
The journal, titled the Journal of the Academy of Public Health (JAPH), includes an editorial board consisting of several scientists who complained of facing censorship during the COVID-19 pandemic.
JAPH's co-founders include Martin Kulldorff, a former Harvard Medical School professor who is a founding fellow at Hillsdale College's Academy for Science and Freedom, and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of health policy at Stanford University who is also Trump's nominee to be the next NIH director. Kulldorff and Bhattacharya became known during the pandemic for authoring The Great Barrington Declaration, which sought to challenge the broader medical community's prevailing notions about COVID-19 mitigation strategies, arguing that – in the long run – the lockdowns that people were facing would do more harm than good.
Dr. Marty Makary, a surgeon and public policy researcher at Johns Hopkins University, who is Trump's nominee to be the next director of the FDA, is on the journal's editorial board as well.
JAPH is adopting a novel approach by publishing peer reviews of prominent studies from other journals that do not make their peer reviews publicly available. The effort is aimed at spurring scientific discourse, Kulldorff said in a paper outlining the purposes of the journal's creation.
The journal will also seek to promote "open access" by making all of its work available to everyone in the public without a paywall, he said, and the journal's editorial leadership will allow all scientists within its network to "freely publish all their research results in a timely and efficient manner," to prevent any potential "gatekeeping."
"Scientific journals have had enormous positive impact on the development of science, but in some ways, they are now hampering rather than enhancing open scientific discourse," Kulldorff said. "After reviewing the history and current problems with journals, a new academic publishing model is proposed – it embraces open access and open rigorous peer review, it rewards reviewers for their important work with honoraria and public acknowledgment and it allows scientists to publish their research in a timely and efficient manner without wasting valuable scientist time and resources."
Kulldorff, Bhattacharya, Makary and others on the new journal's leadership team have complained that their views about the COVID-19 pandemic were censored. These were views that were often contrary to the prevailing ideas put forth by the broader medical community at the time, which related to topics such as vaccine efficacy, natural immunity, lockdowns and more.
"Big tech censored the [sic] all kinds of science on natural immunity," Makary said in testimony to Congress following the pandemic. During his testimony, Makary also shared how one of his own studies at Johns Hopkins during the pandemic that promoted the effectiveness of natural immunity, which one scientific journal listed as its third most discussed study in 2022, "was censored."
"Because of my views on COVID-19 restrictions, I have been specifically targeted for censorship by federal government officials," Bhattacharya added in his own testimony to Congress the same year.
Kulldorff, who has also complained about censorship of his views on COVID-19, argued he was asked to leave his medical professorship at Harvard that he held since 2003, for "clinging to the truth" in his opposition to COVID-19 lockdowns and vaccine mandates.
"The JAPH will ensure quality through open peer-review, but will not gatekeep new and important ideas for the sake of established orthodoxies," Andrew Noymer, JAPH's incoming editor-in-chief told Fox News Digital.
"To pick one example, in my own sub-field of infectious disease epidemiology, we have in the past few years seen too little published scholarship on the origins of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID. Academic publishing as it exists today is too often concerned with preservation of what we think we know, too often to the detriment of new ideas."
Bhattacharya and Makary did not wish to comment on this article.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) canceled more than $180 million in contracts over 48 hours, including a nearly $170,000 contract for an Anthony Fauci museum exhibit.
"In the past 48 hours, HHS canceled 62 contract [sic] worth $182 million," The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) announced in a Friday social media post. "These contracts were entirely for administrative expenses – none touched any healthcare programs. This included terminating a $168,000 contract for an Anthony Fauci exhibit at the NIH Museum."
The news comes as DOGE, led by billionaire Elon Musk, has continued to outline vast changes in government spending over the last few weeks, including a plan to eliminate the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and sweeping changes at the U.S. Treasury Department aimed at eliminating over $100 billion per year in entitlement payments to individuals with no Social Security number.
Seemingly no federal agency has been excluded from the reach of DOGE, with HHS being just the latest in a string of targets meant to eliminate waste from the federal government.
The Fauci exhibit was booked to be finished by July 2025, but has now been scrapped along with $182 million in other HHS administrative expenses.
Fauci has long been a controversial figure and has often clashed with President Donald Trump, who last month revoked the taxpayer-funded security detail for the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) that was requested for him in 2020 as he became the government’s public spokesperson during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"I think, you know, when you work for government, at some point your security detail comes off and, you know, you can't have them forever," Trump said of the move. "We took some off other people, too, but you can't have a security detail for the rest of your life because you work for government."
Fauci was given a preemptive pardon by former President Joe Biden on his last day in office, which was meant to shield the infectious disease expert from feared retribution from Trump during his second stint in the White House, though Fauci was not charged with any crimes at the time of the pardon.
Before serving as the chief medical advisor to the president during COVID-19, Fauci served nearly 30 years as the director of the NIAID between 1984 and 2022.
He started his career at the National Institutes of Health in 1968, and was widely praised for his efforts to confront HIV/AIDs before becoming the government’s public face during the pandemic.
HHS did not immediately respond to a Fox News Digital request for comment.
Republican Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst published a list of projects and programs she says the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has helped fund across the years, highlighting it as "wasteful and dangerous" spending that has gripped taxpayers until the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) stepped in.
"From funneling tax dollars to risky research in Wuhan to sending Ukrainians to Paris Fashion Week, USAID is one of the worst offenders of waste in Washington… all around the world," Ernst posted to X on Monday before rattling off a handful of examples.
Ernst highlighted that the agency "authorized a whopping $20 million to create a Sesame Street in Iraq."
Under the Biden administration, USAID awarded $20 million to a nonprofit called Sesame Workshopto produce a show called "Ahlan Simsim Iraq" in an effort to "promote inclusion, mutual respect, and understanding across ethnic, religious, and sectarian groups."
"As Iraq recovers from years of conflict, communities struggle to find a new sense of normalcy while physical and emotional wounds remain," an archived link to USAID's website reads. "The legacy of Iraq’s conflict with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) left many children without a stable home or displaced, especially those from Iraq’s ethnic and religious minorities. Additionally, Iraqi youth, who make up over half of the population, are unable to find jobs in an economy strained by war and corruption, creating vulnerabilities to radicalization."
USAID's website shut down this week as DOGE and tech billionaire Elon Musk put the agency under its microscope.
The show is styled like the American kids' show "Sesame Street," and was granted funding that began in 2021 and runs until 2027, according to the achieved website. The show continues to air in the Middle East, a review of its website shows.
In another example Ernst highlighted, USAID was found to have provided millions of dollars to farmers in Afghanistan in an effort to get them to grow food instead of poppy fields and opium.
The plan, however, backfired and led to an increase in poppy production, and thus opium production, during the war in Afghanistan.
"During the height of the war in Afghanistan, USAID spent millions of dollars to help Afghans grow crops instead of opium," Ernst posted to X Monday. "The results: opium poppy cultivation across the country nearly doubled, according to the UN."
USAID, as well as the U.S. military, paid farmers to build or rehab miles of irrigation canals in the Helmand province, Afghanistan, during the Obama administration in an effort to persuade the farmers to grow fruits and other plants, the Washington Post reported in 2019. The farmers, however, used the canals to grow poppies.
Poppy production almost doubled in the region between 2010 and 2014, the Post reported, citing U.N. figures.
In another example, Ernst said USAID spent $2 million to fund "Moroccan pottery classes and promotion." Morocco has for thousands of years created pottery, dating back to 6,000 B.C.
Former Oklahoma Republican Sen. Tom Coburn, who died in 2020, published a government "waste book" in 2012 detailing that USAID "began pursuing a four year plan to improve the economic competitiveness of Morocco" beginning in 2009, which included $27 million in funding.
A portion of the funding was directed to a program that "involved training Moroccans to create and design pottery to sell in domestic and international markets," according to the report.
The American pottery instructor hired to teach local artists, however, was unable to communicate with them as a translator for the program was "not fluent in English," according to the waste book.
"An American pottery instructor was contracted to provide several weeks of training classes to local artists to improve their methods and teach them how to successfully make pottery that could be brought to market," the waste book reported. "Unfortunately, the translator hired for the sessions was not fluent in English and was unable to transmit large portions of the lectures to the participants."
Ernst added in another example that USAID "funneled nearly $1 million into batty research on coronaviruses at China’s infamous Wuhan Institute of Virology, which the CIA admits was the likely source of COVID-19."
The Government Accountability Office published a report in 2023 finding that both USAID and the National Institutes of Health directed taxpayer funds to American universities and a nonprofit organization before the money found its way to Chinese groups, including the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
The report found that between 2014 and 2021, U.S. taxpayer funds were redirected to entities, including the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the Wuhan University and the Academy of Military Medical Sciences, which is part of the Chinese Communist Party. The three groups each received more than $2 million combined from the U.S. government "through seven subawards," according to the report.
"The selected entities are government institutions or laboratories in China that conduct work on infectious diseases, including pandemic viruses, and have had actions taken by federal agencies to address safety or security concerns," the report states. "All three selected Chinese entities received funds."
In January, the CIA under the second Trump administration released an updated assessment on the origins of COVID-19, favoring the theory that the contagious disease was due to a lab leak. The CIA previously had maintained that it did not have sufficient evidence to conclude whether COVID originated in a lab or a "wet market" in Wuhan, China.
Ernst claimed in the X thread that USAID also provided funds to boost tourism to Lebanon and to send Ukrainian models to fashion week.
"The agency spent $2 million promoting tourism to Lebanon, a nation the State Department warns against traveling to ‘due to crime, terrorism, civil unrest, kidnapping, unexploded landmines, and the risk of armed conflict,'" she wrote.
"USAID spends money like it’s going out of fashion, literally," she wrote. "Trade assistance to Ukraine paid for models and designers to take trips to New York City, London Fashion Week, Paris Fashion Week, and South by Southwest in Austin."
The Trump administration and DOGE, which is led by Musk, put USAID in its line of fire over the weekend, as DOGE continues tearing through government agencies to strip them of reported overspending and corruption.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that he is now the acting director of USAID, and told the media on Monday that the agency needs to be brought in line with Trump's "America First" policies, which include heightened scrutiny over the distribution of taxpayer funds overseas.
Musk has meanwhile slammed the agency as a "viper’s nest of radical-left marxists who hate America," and reported in an audio-only message on X overnight on Sunday that "we’re in the process" of "shutting down USAID" and that Trump reportedly agreed to shutter the agency.
Democrats have slammed the Trump administration's efforts on USAID. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., accused Trump of starting a dictatorship while she protested outside USAID headquarters on Monday.
"It is a really, really sad day in America. We are witnessing a constitutional crisis," Omar said. "We talked about Trump wanting to be a dictator on day one. And here we are. This is what the beginning of dictatorship looks like when you gut the Constitution, and you install yourself as the sole power. That is how dictators are made."
Fox News Digital's Brooke Singman and Caitlin McFall contributed to this report.
As a deadline looms for government employees to fold to an ultimatum given by the Trump administration to either accept a buyout or return to the office, unions representing those workers have filed a lawsuit, calling the offer "arbitrary and capricious."
The Trump administration is offering buyouts for nearly 2 million federal employees, including those who work remotely, as part of President Donald Trump’s efforts to get employees back into the office, but they only have until Feb. 6 to opt-in.
Under the buyout offer, the employee will stop working this week and receive pay benefits through Sept. 30.
Exempt from the offer are public safety employees, like air traffic controllers.
During Trump’s first week in office, he issued several directives to the federal workforce, including a requirement that remote employees must return to in-person work.
With a deadline quickly approaching, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and two other unions filed a complaint, claiming the buyout offer is "arbitrary and capricious" and violates federal law."
The unions allege the administration cannot guarantee the plan will be funded and has failed to consider the consequences of mass resignations, including how it may affect the government’s ability to function.
On Tuesday, AFGE filed a lawsuit calling for a temporary restraining order (TRO) to halt the Trump administration’s "Fork Directive" deadline of Feb. 6 and require the government to articulate a policy that is lawful, not arbitrary and unlawful.
The union said the "Fork Directive" is the administration’s latest attempt to remove public service workers and replace them with partisan loyalists. The group also says the directive amounts to a clear ultimatum to a sweeping number of federal employees: "resign now or face the possibility of job loss without compensation in the near future."
But the unions say the package being offered violates the law because the funds used to pay the employees who accept the offer have not been appropriated for that reason.
"AFGE is bringing this suit with our partners today to protect the integrity of the government and prevent union members from being tricked into resigning from the federal service," AFGE National President Everett Kelley said. "Federal employees shouldn’t be misled by slick talk from unelected billionaires and their lackeys. Despite claims made to the contrary, this deferred resignation scheme is unfunded, unlawful, and comes with no guarantees. We won’t stand by and let our members become the victims of this con."
Last week, a government-wide email was sent out to ensure all federal workers were on board with the Trump administration’s plan.
The email pointed to four pillars that Trump set forth, to bring accountability back to the federal government, including a return to in-person work, restored accountability for employees who have policymaking authority, restored accountability for senior executives, and a reformed federal hiring process based on merit.
The email noted that the majority of federal employees who have worked remotely since COVID will be required to return to their physical offices five days a week.
For those who returned to office, the Trump administration thanked them for their "renewed focus" on serving the American people. But the future of their position could not be guaranteed, according to the email.
The buyouts do not apply to military personnel of the armed forces, postal service employees, positions related to immigration enforcement and national security, and any other positions specifically excluded by the agency the federal workers are employed by.
The White House is expecting a "spike" in federal resignations ahead of a Thursday deadline for a buyout offer, Fox News Digital has learned.
"The number of deferred resignations is rapidly growing, and we’re expecting the largest spike 24 to 48 hours before the deadline," a White House official told Fox News Digital on Tuesday morning.
Axios reported earlier Tuesday that roughly 20,000 federal employees have taken the offer, accounting for about 1% of the federal government's workforce.
The White House official told Fox News Digital following the report's publication that the 20,000 figure "isn’t current."
Fox News Digital’s Emma Colton and Brooke Singman contributed to this report.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is continuing his efforts to investigate the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, and he wants answers from Dr. Anthony Fauci.
In his new position as chairman of the Senate's Homeland Security committee, Paul issued subpoenas to 14 agencies from the outgoing Biden administration aimed at building on past congressional investigations into the COVID-19 virus and risky taxpayer-funded gain-of-function research. It is unclear who exactly from each agency will ultimately be deposed, but a Fauci deposition is possible.
"In the wake of Anthony Fauci’s preemptive pardon, there are still questions to be answered," Paul said in a statement after announcing the issuance of his subpoenas. "Subpoenas were sent from the Committee to NIH [National Institutes of Health] and 13 other agencies regarding their involvement in risky gain-of-function research. The goal of the investigation will be to critique the process that allowed this dangerous research, that may have led to the pandemic, to occur in a foreign country under unsafe protocols and to ensure that there is sufficient oversight and review going forward, making sure a mistake of this magnitude never happens again."
While former President Joe Biden preemptively pardoned Fauci to protect him from political retribution under the new Trump administration, legal experts have questioned the validity of such a pardon. Missouri Attorney General Andrew Baily suggested to Fox News that since Biden's own Justice Department indicated he lacked the mental faculties to be held criminally liable for improper handling of classified documents, it could be argued he also lacked the mens rea to issue pardons to people like Fauci. Additionally, the pardon Fauci received only covers his actions from January 2014 to the date of his pardon. As a result, a refusal to comply with a congressional subpoena could also potentially result in criminal charges.
Paul's investigation will build on a previous bipartisan probe launched by the Senate's Homeland Security committee last year looking into the national security threats posed by "high-risk biological research and technology in the U.S. and abroad."
A second investigation being launched by Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., the chairman of the Permanent Select Subcommittee on Investigations, will similarly probe concerns in the new Congress surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic and will include a review of email communications from Fauci.
Since the pandemic began, Paul has sent dozens of requests for information related to the origins of the COVID-19 virus and gain-of-function research. Last year, his efforts revealed documents that he said show that government officials from at least 15 federal agencies knew in 2018 that China's Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) was working on creating a coronavirus similar to COVID-19.
The WIV has been a centerpiece in the debate over the origins of COVID-19, as it was eventually discovered that American scientist Peter Daszak's EcoHealth Alliance was using taxpayer dollars to conduct risky research on the novel bat virus out of the WIV prior to the COVID-19 outbreak. Earlier this month, the Department of Health and Human Services barred Daszak and EcoHealth Alliance from receiving federal funding for five years.
Meanwhile, Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), told Congress in May 2021 that the NIH "has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology."
The Trump administration is reportedly preparing an executive order to halt all U.S. funding going towards gain-of-function research.
Federal officials remain split on where the COVID-19 virus originated from. Three agencies — the Department of Energy, the FBI and the CIA — have determined that the most likely origin narrative is the lab leak theory, but others in the intelligence community and throughout the federal government say they can either not conclude that a lab leak was the most likely scenario, or they say that a natural origin scenario is most likely. A declassified intelligence report from 2021, published by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, posited that if a lab leak did turn out to be the catalyst of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was likely the result of an accident.
Representatives for Paul declined to comment for this report, while Fauci did not respond to a request for comment.
The Trump administration is offering buyouts for nearly all federal employees, including those who work remotely, as part of President Donald Trump’s efforts to get employees back into the office, but they only have until Feb. 6 to opt-in.
During Trump’s first week in office, he issued several directives to the federal workforce, including a requirement that remote employees must return to in-person work.
"After four years of incompetence and failure, President Donald Trump is committed to making our government efficient and productive again," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement on Tuesday. "American taxpayers pay for the salaries of federal government employees and therefore deserve employees working on their behalf who actually show up to work in our wonderful federal buildings, also paid for by taxpayers.
"If they don’t want to work in the office and contribute to making America great again, then they are free to choose a different line of work, and the Trump Administration will provide a very generous payout of eight months," she added.
On Tuesday, a government-wide email was sent out to ensure all federal workers were on board with the Trump administration’s plan.
The email pointed to four pillars that Trump set forth, to bring accountability back to the federal government, including a return to in-person work, restored accountability for employees who have policy-making authority, restored accountability for senior executives, and a reformed federal hiring process based on merit.
"The government-wide email being sent today is to make sure that all federal workers are on board with the new administration’s plan to have federal employees in office and adhering to higher standards," a senior administration official said. "We’re five years past COVID and just 6 percent of federal employees work full-time in office. That is unacceptable."
The email noted that the majority of federal employees who have worked remotely since COVID will be required to return to their physical offices five days a week.
"Going forward, we also expect our physical offices to undergo meaningful consolidation and divestitures, potentially resulting in physical office relocations for a number of federal workers," the email read.
For those who returned to office, the Trump administration thanked them for their "renewed focus" on serving the American people. But the future of their position could not be guaranteed, according to the email.
For those who do not want to continue in their role with the federal workforce, the Trump administration thanked them for their services, informing them they will be provided with a "dignified, fair departure from the federal government utilizing a deferred resignation program."
The program begins on Jan. 28 and will be available until Feb. 6, and should a federal employee choose to resign under the program, they will retain all pay and benefits, regardless of workload, and will be exempt from their in-person work requirements until Sep. 30, 2025.
The buyouts do not apply to military personnel of the armed forces, the U.S. Postal Services, positions related to immigration enforcement and national security, and any other positions specifically excluded by the agency the federal workers are employed by.
"To be clear, as it was with President Trump’s executive order on Day One, implementation of return-to-work policies will be done by each individual agency in accordance with applicable law," the senior administration official said. "We expect 5 to 10 percent of federal employees to quit, and it could lead to $100 billion annually in savings for federal taxpayers."
The CIA has changed its assessment on the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, now favoring the lab leak theory. Under its new director, John Ratcliffe, the agency released an assessment on the origins of COVID-19.
The review was ordered by former President Joe Biden’s National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan toward the end of Biden's time in office.
Analysts made the assessment with "low confidence" despite former CIA director Bill Burns, who remained agnostic on the origins, telling the agency it needed to look at the existing evidence again and come down on one side or the other.
The agency has maintained for years it did not have enough intelligence to conclude whether COVID originated in a lab or a wet market in Wuhan, China. Despite the new assessment favoring a lab leak, there was no indication of new evidence.
"CIA assesses with low confidence that a research-related origin of the COVID-19 pandemic is more likely than a natural origin based on the available body of reporting. CIA continues to assess that both research-related and natural origin scenarios of the COVID-19 pandemic remain plausible," a CIA spokesperson told Fox News.
"We have low confidence in this judgment and will continue to evaluate any available credible new intelligence reporting or open-source information that could change CIA's assessment."
Ratcliffe, who was confirmed Thursday, has long been a proponent of the lab leak theory. In an interview with Breitbart, Ratcliffe framed the assessment of COVID’s origins as part of a broader strategy "addressing the threat from China."
He also said he wants the CIA to "get off the sidelines" and take a stand.
In a March 2023 Fox News piece co-written with Cliff Sims, Ratcliffe accused the Biden administration of trying to keep a growing consensus around the lab leak theory quiet by suppressing "what can clearly be assessed from the intelligence they possess."
He also cast doubt on the notion that the CIA did not have enough evidence to come to a conclusion about the virus’ origins.
"The CIA is the world’s premier spy agency. Its reach is unmatched, its ability to acquire information unrivaled. And yet here we are three-and-a-half years later and there is ample public reporting that the CIA just doesn’t have enough information to make an assessment. This is utter nonsense," the March 2023 piece says.
In the same piece, Ratcliffe and Sims dismissed the idea that the virus emerged naturally, claiming there was "a complete absence of intelligence or scientific evidence" pointing to that conclusion.
When he testified before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic in April 2023, Ratcliffe said the lab leak theory was "the only explanation credibly supported by our intelligence, by science and by common sense."
