Feds say research fund was plundered
WASHINGTON — Federal officials repeatedly raided a fund earmarked for biomedical research in the years leading up to the coronavirus pandemic, spending millions of dollars to pay for unrelated salaries, administrative expenses and even the cost of removing office furniture, according to the findings from an investigation into a whistleblower complaint.
The investigation, conducted by the Health and Human Services Department’s inspector general and overseen by the Office of Special Counsel, focused on hundreds of millions of dollars intended for the development of vaccines, drugs and therapies by the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA, an arm of the federal health department.
The unidentified whistleblower alleged that officials in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response at HHS, which oversaw the biomedical agency, wrongly dipped into the money set aside by Congress for development of lifesaving medicines, beginning in fiscal 2010 and continuing through at least fiscal 2019, spanning the Obama and Trump administrations.
The inspector general substantiated some of the whistleblower’s claims, finding that staffers referred to the agency as the “bank of BARDA” and told investigators that research and development funds were regularly used for unrelated projects, sometimes at “exorbitant” rates.
“I am deeply concerned about (the) apparent misuse of millions of dollars in funding meant for public health emergencies like the one our country is currently facing with the COVID-19 pandemic,” special counsel Henry Kerner wrote in a letter to President Joe Biden on Wednesday. “Equally concerning is how widespread and well known this practice appeared to be for nearly a decade.”
The inspector general concluded that the agency violated the Purpose Statute, a cornerstone of federal law designed to ensure that funds appropriated by Congress are used for their intended purpose.
Meanwhile, HHS is reviewing whether the spending irregularities violated the Antideficiency Act, another law governing the use of federal funds authorized by Congress. The health department also has engaged an accounting firm to conduct an audit, Kerner told Biden.
The report doesn’t say exactly how much was misappropriated, though a spokesperson for the special counsel’s office said investigators are “confident” that the assistant secretary’s office wrongly repurposed millions of dollars in funds intended for biomedical research and development.