A Tiktok video that was shared on Facebook claiming that Christine Grady, wife of immunologist and White House medical adviser Anthony Fauci, is involved in approving the COVID-19 vaccines is false.
Grady, who is working for the National Institute of Health, is not in any way involved or part of the approval process for the COVID-19 vaccines. The Food and Drug Administration holds the approval of vaccines and not NIH.
After FDA granted full approval of Pfizer BioNTech’s COVID19, posts surfaced on Facebook claiming that Grady is involved in the approval process of said vaccines.
“Everyone knows who this is, right? This is Christine Grady. She is the head of NIH, and anybody who knows about NIH knows NIH are the people who approve which jabs the FDA are gonna approve for vaccination on humans, right?” the person in the video claims. “So Dr. Fauci’s wife is the person who approves vaccinations for the FDA.”
The video’s claims that Grady is involved in the approval process of vaccines are not examined well. To begin with, Grady is the chief of Bioethics at the NIH Clinical Center and not the head of NIH. And the NIH is not the agency that approves emergency use authorization neither approval for vaccines.
It is the FDA that has the regulatory authority to do such, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Website.
Vaccines undergo an approval process that includes conducting clinical trials, presenting a Biologics License Application to the FDA, and introducing findings to the FDA’s Vaccines And Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, just a few of the many other steps vaccines go through.
“Dr. Grady does not approve the conduct of any research protocol and she has no input into the FDA process for issuing EUAs,” NIH Clinical Center spokesperson Maria Maslennikov told Check Your Fact via email. “The authority to issue emergency use authorizations (EUA) and approvals lie with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), not the NIH.”
The NIH’s Department of Bioethics only “conducts conceptual, empirical, and policy-related research into bioethical issues,” “offers comprehensive training to future bioethicists and educational programs for biomedical researchers and clinical providers” and “provides high quality ethics consultation services to clinicians, patients, and families of the NIH’s Clinical Center and advice to the NIH IRBs, investigators, and others on the ethical conduct of research,” according to its website.
In conclusion, Anthony Fauci’s wife is not responsible nor involved in the approval process of vaccines for COVID-19.
