Former chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden and as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr Anthony Fauci was grilled Monday (Jun 3) as he testified before a Republican-led House panel investigating the origins of COVID-19 and the government's pandemic response. During the testimony, an intense bipartisan divide was on display as Republicans on the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic committee hounded him while Democrats came to his rescue.
The hearing comes as several Republicans have alleged that he had been communicating about official work using his private accounts.
It was Fauci's first public appearance on Capitol Hill since leaving government in 2022.
The committee chairman, Rep. Brad Wenstrup of Ohio, started off with a thanking note, lauding Fauci's "willing cooperation," for his voluntary appearance in the hearing.
But he was quick to give Fauci a tough time with his questions as he claimed he allowed his office to be "unaccountable to the American people."
"We have seen officials from your office, in their own writing, discussing breaking federal law, deleting official records, and sharing private government information with grant recipients. The office you directed and those serving under your leadership chose to flout the law and bragged about it," Wenstrup said.
Wenstrup was here referring to Dr David Morens, a senior adviser to Fauci, who had appeared before the panel last week and faced accusations that he had been circumventing federal Freedom of Information Act rules by using a "secret back channel" with Fauci.
Fauci on Monday distanced himself from Morens, saying the latter was not an adviser to him on "institute policy or other substantive issues."
"Let me state for the record, to the best of my knowledge, I have never conducted official business using my personal email," Fauci told the committee.
Fauci also touched upon the claims that he was trying to shield the EcoHealth Alliance, whose funding from the government came to light because of its close links to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Notably, Morens quoted an email to the EcoHealth Alliance to level this allegation against Fauci.
"I don't know where he got that, but that's not true," said Fauci.
Fauci stressed the allegation that he influenced scientists working to determine whether the virus had originated in a lab by bribing them with grant money "is absolutely false and simply preposterous." He also disputed the claim that he made efforts to hide that the virus originated in the lab, saying he has "always kept an open mind to the different possibilities."
(With inputs from agencies)
Geopolitical writer at WION, follows Indian foreign policy and world politics, a truth seeker.
Most of the COVID-19 cases Dr. Gary Green is treating these days on an outpatient level are related to crowded events and travel the kinds of things Americans do in greater numbers as summer arrives.
For the highly infectious SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, that can translate to spreading infections.
Green, a Sutter Health infectious disease expert, says hes seeing a steady flow of cases but not a lot, and severe symptoms requiring hospitalization are uncommon.
Increasing herd immunity, greater outdoor activity spurred by warmer weather and an elderly population that has dialed in protective measures are all contributing to a lull in cases, Green said.
But new COVID-19 subvariants are threatening to ramp up viral transmission this summer and especially in the fall and winter.
KP. 2, the most prolific of the so-called FLiRT subvariants, and currently the most dominant subvariant in the U.S., is a fourth or fifth generation strain of the omicron variant. Its a descendant of omicrons JN.1 strain.
In less than two months, between late March and early May, KP. 2 infections went from 4% to about 28% in the United States, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Green said as with previous subvariants of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 illness, KP. 2 has mutated spike proteins that allow it to more efficiently attach to respiratory epithelium, which protect against inhaled pathogens and irritants.
Unfortunately, thats part of the natural evolution of these subvariants, he said.
We expect these viruses to be a little bit more efficient in their contagiousness and their transmission and their attachment, Green said.
But the good news is this is mainly in the upper respiratory tract, where you feel like (you have) the head cold, and not as much in the lower respiratory tract where you feel like you have pneumonia, he said.
These don't make the virus any more dangerous, Green added. So we don't expect more severe cases. But it might be just slightly more contagious.
Green said the current vaccine does appear to offer some protection against the new variants.
Dr. Tanya Phares, Sonoma Countys health officer, echoed Greens comments regarding the subvariants. Despite increased transmissibility, these mutations dont appear to result in more severe disease, she said in an email.
Phares said that between late March and early May, eight cases of FLiRT subvariants have been genetically sequenced. The FLiRT subvariants are descended from the JN.1 subvariant, which is still the dominant strain in Sonoma County and the state, health officials said.
In Napa County, the most prevalent subvariants since April have been KP. 2 at 7%, KP. 3 at 4% and KP. 1.1 at 3%, according to county health officials.
Dr. Michael Vollmer, regional hospital epidemiologist for Kaiser Permanente, said the most recent FLiRT mutations are not unexpected and follow a pattern of viral evolution that takes place every three to six months as the virus circulates globally.
The virus is still constantly looking for pathways to replicate itself, Vollmer said, adding that todays mutations, though related, look very different than what was circulating a year ago or two years ago.
But what were not seeing at this juncture is any increase in severe illness, he said. Unlike in 2021, we don't think we're going to see some big jump in emergency room or hospital admissions through the summer.
Vollmer said predicting what will happen in the fall and winter is more difficult.
Its important for people to understand that COVID-19 is not going anywhere and while the overall impact is not as severe as it once was, the virus still poses danger to those over 65 or people who are severely immunosuppressed, he said.
Those that keep up to date with vaccinations are going to do better, Vollmer said. People, particularly those who are in those vulnerable categories, should make sure that they're getting up-to-date vaccinations, they could consider getting repeat doses.
Vollmer said he expects vaccine makers and federal regulators will be convening this month to discuss another update to the COVID-19 vaccine for the fall and winter seasons.
The next two to four weeks this summer could see an increase in COVID-19 cases, but its not likely to have a big impact on the health care system, he said.
Dr. John Swartzberg, an infectious disease expert at UC Berkeley, said omicrons JN.1 strain had been dominant in the United States up until about two months ago, when JN.1 subvariants such as KP. 2 began gaining ground.
The current vaccine which became available last October targets an omicron subvariant known as XBB. 1, Swartzberg said, adding that KP. 2 was more transmissible than JN. 1, which itself was more transmissible than XBB. 1.
SARS-CoV-2 continues to evolve, just as it has throughout the pandemic, by discovering new ways to evade the host immunity, he said.
But Swartzberg pointed out there is little evidence that KP. 2 and the latest JN.1 subvariants cause more severe disease.
The other good news, he said, is that the current vaccine does offer some protection.
Swartzberg said last month the World Health Organization recommended the fall vaccine be directed against JN.1. He said he expects the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will at least take that step in recommendations.
Theyll either follow the WHO and recommend the vaccine (target) JN.1 or they recommend it against KP. 2, the most prominent of the FLiRT variants, Swartzberg said.
The good news is it only takes a couple of months to really produce enough vaccine to vaccinate everybody, he said.
You can reach Staff Writer Martin Espinoza at 707-521-5213 or martin.espinoza@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @pressreno.
WATCH: Health Matters: Life expectancy has dropped 1.6 years, analysis finds Mar 12, 2024
The first three years of the COVID-19 pandemic had more than three million excess deaths in Western countries, a new study says, raising serious concerns.
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The research published in the BMJ Public Health journal Monday showed that between January 1, 2020 and December 31, 2022, a total of 3,089,465 excess deaths were reported in 47 countries in the West, including Canada.
Excess mortality reflects data about the number of deaths that exceed what is expected or considered normal during a given period.
The first full year of the pandemic had more than 1.03 million excess deaths in 2020, the BMJ study said.
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In 2021, when the first COVID-19 vaccines were rolled out, there were roughly 1.25 million excess deaths.
Then, in 2022, when countries lifted most COVID-19 related measures, more than 808,000 excess deaths were reported, according to preliminary estimates.
Excess mortality has remained high in the Western world for three consecutive years, despite the implementation of containment measures and COVID-19 vaccines, the study authors in Netherlands concluded.
This is unprecedented and raises serious concerns, they said, adding that governments and policymakers need to thoroughly investigate underlying causes of persistent excess mortality and evaluate their health crises policies.
Researchers looked at all-cause mortality reports for Western countries using the Our World in Data statistics.
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In Canada, thousands of excess deaths have been reported since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2020, five per cent or 13,798 more deaths than expected were reported had there been no pandemic, according to provisional data from Statistics Canada.
Meanwhile, provisional StatCan data from March 2020 through December 2021 showed an estimated 30,146 excess deaths or nearly six per cent more deaths than expected.
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In addition to deaths directly caused by COVID-19, the pandemic could also have indirect consequences that increase or decrease the occurrences of death, StatCan said in its report from May 2022.
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The agency says it is important to measure excess mortality to better understand the direct and indirect consequences of the COVID19 pandemic.
While the BMJ study did not specifically examine the causes of the persistently high excess deaths in the West during the pandemic, the authors said non-pharmaceutical interventions to curb COVID-19 spread had adverse indirect effects, such as limited access to healthcare, disrupted health programmes and mental health challenges that increased morbidity and mortality from other causes.
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Vulnerable populations in need of acute or complex medical treatment, such as patients with cardiovascular disease, cerebrovascular conditions, diabetes and cancer, were hurt by these interventions due to the limited access to and delivery of medical services, the authors wrote in the study.
They also blamed staff shortages, postponed surgeries, limited availability of medicines, and delayed diagnostics for worsening the conditions of patients.
After more than three years, the World Health Organization declared in May 2023 that the COVID-19 was no longer a global health emergency.
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However, COVID-19 cases and deaths continue to be reported in Canada and other countries.
As of May 28, a total of more than 4.96 million COVID-19 cases and 59,382 deaths have been reported in Canada, according to government data.
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COVID-19 patients hospitalized with the wild-type virus in 2020 were at a 29% higher risk for death than their nonhospitalized counterparts 3 years later, and even those with mild illness still reported new-onset health consequences, concludes areport on long COVID published today in Nature Medicine.
Researchers from the Veterans Affairs (VA) St. Louis Health Care System and Scripps Research followed up on 135,161 COVID-19 survivors and 5,206,835 controls in the VA system for 3 years to estimate the risks of long COVID and death. At the time that the survivors were infected, COVID vaccines and antivirals hadn't been developed.
There were 114,864 participants (12.0% women) in the non-hospitalized group and 20,297 in the hospitalized group (5.8% women). In the control group, 9.7% were women.
The risk of death among patients hospitalized within 30 days of infection decreased over time but was still significantly elevated 3 years post-infection (incidence rate ratio, 1.29). Although the risk of long COVID declined over that time, substantial residual risk persisted, leading to 90.0 disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) per 1,000 people.
Among non-hospitalized patients, there was no increased risk of death after the first year, and the risk of long COVID declined over 3years but still led to 9.6 DALYs per 1,000 people in the third year.
Three years post-infection, hospitalized COVID-19 patients had a 34% higher risk of symptoms across all organ systems than controls, down from an 182% increased risk 1 year post-infection and 57% at 2 years.
Over 3 years, 378.7 long-COVID symptoms were reported per 1,000 people, including 212.3, 125.0, and 41.2 in the first, second, and third year post-infection, respectively. This corresponded to 56.1%, 33.0%, and 10.9%, respectively, of the total 3-year long-COVID burden.
The 3-year burden of DALYs attributed to long COVID-19 was 91.2 per 1,000 people, including 54.3, 27.3, and 9.6 in the first, second, and third year, respectively. This corresponded to 59.6%, 29.9%, and 10.5%, respectively, of the total 3-year DALYs.
Total DALYs of hospitalized COVID-19 patients at 3years (766.2 per 1,000 people) were 8.4 times higher than those of non-hospitalized participants (91.2 per 1,000 people).
There was a 5% increased risk of long-COVID symptoms at 3 years among non-hospitalized patients, which translates into 41 more health problems per 1,000 people. In comparison, the risk was 23% higher 1 year post-infection, rising 16% by 2 years. Persistent health effects in the third year mainly affected the gastrointestinal, lung, and neurologic systems.
"While risk declined over time in both people who were non-hospitalized and hospitalized for COVID during the initial phase of the infection, residual risk remains even in those who had mild COVID; that risk is much higher in the hospitalized," study authorZiyad Al-Aly, MD, chief of research and development at the VA St. Louis Health Care System, told CIDRAP News.
The nations top mental health official had spent months asking for evidence behind the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions social distancing guidelines, warning that keeping Americans physically apart during the coronavirus pandemic would harm patients, businesses, and overall health and wellness.
Now, Elinore McCance-Katz, the Trump administrations assistant secretary for mental health and substance use, was urging the CDC to justify its recommendation that Americans stay six feet apart to avoid contracting covid-19 or get rid of it.
I very much hope that CDC will revisit this decision or at least tell us that there is more and stronger data to support this rule than what I have been able to find online, McCance-Katz wrote in a June 2020 memo submitted to the CDC and other health agency leaders and obtained by The Washington Post. If not, they should pull it back.
The CDC would keep its six-foot social distance recommendation in place until August 2022, with some modifications as Americans got vaccinated against the virus and officials pushed to reopen schools. Now, congressional investigators are set Monday to press Anthony S. Fauci, the infectious-disease doctor who served as a key coronavirus adviser during the Trump and Biden administrations, on why the CDCs recommendation was allowed to shape so much of American life for so long, particularly given Fauci and other officials recent acknowledgments that there was little science behind the six-foot rule after all.
It sort of just appeared, that six feet is going to be the distance, Fauci testified to Congress in a January closed-door hearing, according to a transcribed interview released Friday. Fauci characterized the recommendation as an empiric decision that wasnt based on data.
Francis S. Collins, former director of the National Institutes of Health, also privately testified to Congress in January that he was not aware of evidence behind the social distancing recommendation, according to a transcript released in May.
Four years later, visible reminders of the six-foot rule remain with us, particularly in cities that rushed to adopt the CDCs guidelines hoping to protect residents and keep businesses open. D.C. is dotted with signs in stores and schools even on sidewalks or in government buildings urging people to stand six feet apart.
Experts agree that social distancing saved lives, particularly early in the pandemic when Americans had no protections against a novel virus sickening millions of people. One recent paper published by the Brookings Institution, a nonpartisan think tank, concludes that behavior changes to avoid developing covid-19, followed later by vaccinations, prevented about 800,000 deaths. But that achievement came at enormous cost, the authors added, with inflexible strategies that werent driven by evidence.
We never did the study about what works, said Andrew Atkeson, a UCLA economist and co-author of the paper, lamenting the lack of evidence around the six-foot rule. He warned that persistent frustrations over social distancing and other measures might lead Americans to ignore public health advice during the next crisis.
The U.S. distancing measure was particularly stringent, as other countries adopted shorter distances; the World Health Organization set a distance of one meter, or slightly more than three feet, which experts concluded was roughly as effective as the six-foot mark at deterring infections, and would have allowed schools to reopen more rapidly.
The six-foot rule was probably the single most costly intervention the CDC recommended that was consistently applied throughout the pandemic, Scott Gottlieb, former Food and Drug Administration commissioner, wrote in his book about the pandemic, Uncontrolled Spread.
Its still not clear who at the CDC settled on the six-foot distance; the agency has repeatedly declined to specify the authors of the guidance, which resembled its recommendations on how to avoid contracting the flu. A CDC spokesperson credited a team of experts, who drew from research such as a 1955 study on respiratory droplets. In his book, Gottlieb wrote that the Trump White House pushed back on the CDCs initial recommendation of 10 feet of social distance, saying it would be too difficult to implement.
Perhaps the rules biggest impact was on children, despite ample evidence they were at relatively low risk of covid-related complications. Many schools were unable to accommodate six feet of space between students desks and forced to rely on virtual education for more than a year, said Joseph Allen, a Harvard University expert in environmental health, who called in 2020 for schools to adopt three feet of social distance.
The six-foot rule was really an error that had been propagated for several decades, based on a misunderstanding of how particles traveled through indoor spaces, Allen said, adding that health experts often wrongly focused on avoiding droplets from infected people rather than improving ventilation and filtration inside buildings.
Social distancing had champions before the pandemic. Bush administration officials, working on plans to fight bioterrorism, concluded that social distancing could save lives in a health crisis and renewed their calls as the coronavirus approached. The idea also took hold when public health experts initially believed that the coronavirus was often transmitted by droplets expelled by infected people, which could land several feet away; the CDC later acknowledged the virus was airborne and people could be exposed just by sharing the same air in a room, even if they were farther than six feet apart.
There was no magic around six feet, Robert R. Redfield, who served as CDC director during the Trump administration, told a congressional committee in March 2022. Its just historically thats what was used for other respiratory pathogens. So that really became the first piece of a strategy to protect Americans in the early days of the virus, he said.
It also became the standard that states and businesses adopted, with swift pressure on holdouts. Lawmakers and workers urged meat processing plants, delivery companies and other essential businesses to adopt the CDCs social distancing recommendations as their employees continued reporting to work during the pandemic.
Some business leaders werent sure the measures made sense. Jeff Bezos, founder of online retail giant Amazon, petitioned the White House in March 2020 to consider revising the six-foot recommendation, said Adam Boehler, then a senior Trump administration official helping with the coronavirus response. At the time, Amazon was facing questions about a rising number of infections in its warehouses, and Democratic senators were urging the company to adopt social distancing.
Bezos called me and asked, is there any real science behind this rule? Boehler said, adding that Bezos pushed on whether Amazon could adopt an alternative distance if workers were masked, physically separated by dividers or other precautions were taken. He said its the backbone of trying to keep America running here, and when you separate somebody five feet versus six feet, its a big difference, Boehler recalled. Bezos owns The Washington Post.
Kelly Nantel, an Amazon spokesperson, confirmed that Bezos called Boehler and said the Amazon founders focus was the discrepancy between the U.S. recommendation and the WHOs shorter distance. The company soon said it would follow the CDCs six-foot social distancing guidelines in its warehouses and later developed technologies to try to enforce those guidelines. We did it globally everywhere because it was the right thing to do, Nantel said.
Boehler said he spoke with Redfield and Fauci about testing alternatives to the six-foot recommendation but that he was not aware of what happened to those tests or what they found. Fauci declined to comment. Redfield did not respond to requests for comment.
But challenging the six-foot recommendation, particularly in the pandemics early days, was seen as politically difficult. Rochelle Walensky, then chief of infectious disease at Massachusetts General Hospital, argued in a July 2020 email that if people are masked it is quite safe and much more practical to be at 3 feet in many school settings.
Five months later, incoming president Joe Biden would tap Walensky as his CDC director. Walensky swiftly endorsed the six-foot distance before working to loosen it, announcing in March 2021 that elementary school students could sit three feet apart if they were masked. Walensky declined to comment.
The most persistent government critic of the social distancing guidelines may have been McCance-Katz, who did not respond to requests for comment for this article. Trumps mental health chief had spent several years clashing with other Department of Health and Human Services officials on various matters and had few internal defenders by the time the pandemic arrived, hampering her message. But while her pleas failed to move the CDC, her warnings about the risks to mental health found an audience with Trump and his allies, who blamed federal bureaucrats for the six-foot rule and other measures.
What is this nonsense that somehow its unsafe to return to school? McCance-Katz said in September 2020 on an HHS podcast, lamenting the broader shutdown of American life. I do think that Americans are smart people, and I think that they need to start asking questions about why is it this way.
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Watch again as House Republicans questioned Dr Anthony Fauci on his response to the Covid-19 pandemic and the origins of the virus on Monday, 3 June.
Lawmakers grilled the former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) in his first congressional testimony in almost two years.
The GOP-led Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic have requested access to Dr Fauci's personal email and mobile phone records after obtaining information they say calls into question whether he may have attempted to keep some records away from the public eye.
Dr Fauci, who is appearing voluntarily, has declared he has "nothing to hide."
The 83-year-old served as NIAID Director from 1984 to 2022, overseeing research to treat diseases such as HIV and Aids, Ebola, Zika, and Covid-19.
Covid-19 infection can also cause complications related to the heart and brain.
MOH said people need to draw the right conclusions and follow the scientific evidence.
Several examples given by the PPP were either not written by the authors they cited, or their work had been debunked, said the MOH.
For example, the PPP cited Dr Peter McCullough, who claimed that the risks of myocarditis outweigh the benefits of vaccination.
MOH said his article, A Systematic Review Of Autopsy Findings In Deaths After Covid-19 Vaccination, was removed by Preprints With The Lancet.
The reason given was the studys conclusions are not supported by the study methodology.
The Lancet journal said preprints are early-stage research papers that have not been peer-reviewed.
Regarding the claim made by Dr Geert Vanden Bosshe, a virologist from Belgium, that mass vaccinations expedited the evolution of the Sars-CoV-2 virus, which causes Covid-19, MOH said that viruses naturally mutate as they replicate, and that there is no evidence that the mRNA vaccines contributed to evolution.
Three others mentioned by the PPP Dr Robert Malone, Dr Aseem Malhotra and Professor Angus Dalgleish did not author the articles which the PPP had quoted them as saying.
In mid-May, Health Minister Ong Ye Kung warned that Singapore was facing an upsurge in Covid-19, which he expected to peak towards the end of June.
At that time, about 250 people were hospitalised for Covid-19 each day.
This has since gone up to an average of 371 a day, an MOH spokesman told The Straits Times, although the number requiring intensive care remains low.
More people are also being diagnosed with Covid-19. There were 24,800 cases in the week of May 19-25, up from 21,900the previous week.
Looking back at the pandemic, which raged globally for more than two years from 2020, the ministry said: The high level of vaccine protection in our society averted many Covid-related deaths, protected our healthcare system from being overwhelmed, and allowed us to preserve lives and livelihoods.
The normalcy in our daily lives today is in large part due to the protection that Covid-19 vaccines provide.
On May 18, the MOH said that about 80 per cent of people here who have completed their initial or additional vaccine doses have not received a dose within the past year.
The recommendation is for people who are 60 years and older, or who are medically vulnerable, to be vaccinated annually.
The Covid-19 vaccine remains free for all eligible residents at 250 Healthier SG clinics and at five joint testing and vaccination centres, and selected polyclinics.
Urging people, especially those at higher risk of severe illness if infected, to stay up to date with their Covid-19 vaccines, the spokesman said the ministry is closely tracking the KP.1 and KP.2 wave, and is ready to implement additional measures to preserve our healthcare capacity if necessary.
SINGAPORE: The Ministry of Health (MOH) on Monday (Jun 3) rejected "egregious and false claims" cited by the People's Power Party, which had called for a suspension of COVID-19 vaccination.
The opposition party's Facebook post on May 29 cited "studies and analyses by prominent medical experts", which claimed that COVID-19 vaccines caused high incidences of severe side effects, MOH said.
It also attempted to draw associations between high vaccination rates and excess deaths, the ministry said in a media statement on Monday.
The People's Power Party claimed that Singapore has been experiencing "unusual and exceptionally high excess deaths" since 2021 when COVID-19 vaccination was introduced as compared to pre-vaccination years.
"It is more worrying that such high excess deaths situation is not unique to Singapore as other highly COVID-19-vaccinated countries and region are also encountering similar problems," said the opposition party in its Facebook post.
MOH categorically rejects these egregious and false claims, said the Health Ministry, adding that people must"draw the right conclusions and follow the scientific evidence on the safety and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines".
"The primary reason whySingapore recorded one of the lowest excess death rates in the world during the pandemic, is because the majority of Singaporeans took the vaccines," said MOH.
The ministry also said that contrary to the claims that vaccination has led to excess deaths, multiple studies have shown that that COVID-19 vaccination reduces the risk of death as compared to the unvaccinated during the period of the pandemic.
This includes countries that predominantly use the mRNA vaccines, it added.
In fact, 19.8 million deaths from COVID-19 were prevented globally within the first 12 months that vaccines became available (from December 2020 to December 2021), said MOH.
The Health Ministry added that excess deaths in Singapore during the pandemic were attributable to deaths of people infected with COVID-19 or those with a recent infection. Of those who died, there was an "over-representation" of people who were not fully vaccinated.
The high level of vaccine protection in our society averted many COVID-related deaths, protected our healthcare system from being overwhelmed, and allowed us to preserve lives and livelihoods, said the ministry.
The normalcy in our daily lives today is in large part due to the protection that COVID-19 vaccines provide.
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Dr Sherri Tenpenny, a Cleveland doctor who told state legislators during the Covid-19 pandemic that vaccines caused people to become "magnetic", has been sued by the federal government for failing to pay $650,000 in taxes and late fees, investigators say.
The Department of Justice's Tax Division sued Tenpenny in the US District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, accusing her of failing to pay her taxes in 2001, 2012 and in 2013.
With the addition of late fees and penalties, the DOJ argues Tenpenny owes a total of $646,929.82.
Tenpenny spoke to Cleveland.com and told reporters she has been unfairly targeted by the feds and claims she has tried for years to clear up her tax issues.
This shows what the IRS can do to a person that they target, she told Cleveland.com's Adam Ferrise. This is a total harassment case. Theyve been doing this to me for 23 years.
The DOJ noted in the court filing that Tenpenny had previously established "compromise offers" and was involved in "installation agreements" to pay off her taxes, but noted the taxes from three years remained outstanding.
"Despite proper notice and demand, Sherri J. Tenpenny failed, neglected, or refused to fully pay the liabilities described in paragraph 3, and after the application of all abatements, payments, and credits, she remains liable to the United States in the amount of $646,929.82, plus statutory additions and interest accruing from and after April 8, 2024," according to the DOJ's lawsuit.
Tenpenny, who was lauded by anti-vax conservatives for speaking out against the Covid vaccines, has run to Republican Senator JD Vance looking for help.
In 2021, Tenpenny shared conspiracy theories while testifying in support of Ohio legislation that would block the state's ability to enforce mask mandates or vaccine requirements.
She infamously claimed that vaccines made human beings magnetic, that they "interface" with cell phone service towers and they interfere with women's menstrual cycles.
After sharing disinformation with legislators, approximately 350 complaints were filed against Tenpenny with the state's medical board. A probe was launched but the doctor refused to cooperate with investigators, calling the inquiry an "illegal fishing expedition." Her license to practice medicine was suspended in 2023.
Earlier this year, the state's medical board voted to reinstate her license provided she agree to pay a $3,000 fine and cooperate with investigators.
