The No. 2 in the command at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Dr. ir. Lawrence A. Tabak, who served as acting director of the Agency during the COVID-19 Pandemie, has abruptly resigned.
Tabak, 73, has been to the NIH for 25 years and served for the first time as director of the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research before he finally became the most important deputy director of NIH in 2010, the second in the order of the Agency. Tabak also served as acting director during transitional periods, also during the COVID era when he was regularly grilled by Republicans, next to Republicans, next Dr. Anthony Fauci, About the response of the NIH.
“I write to inform you that I have retired from the government service, in force today, 2/11/2025,” wrote Tabak in an e -mail, reportedly to the staff of the NIH, earlier this week. The memorandum did not explain the reason before his departure.
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Dr. Lawrence Tabak testifies before the Senate Credits Subcommissie on Labor, Health and Human Services and Education on Capitol Hill on 4 May 2023. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty images)
The dismissal of tobacco comes in the midst of a commotion within the Health and Human Services department, the parent agency of the NIH, which took place once president Donald Trump In the office in January. Under Trump, the agency has had to deal with cuts on programs and reports have indicated that the administration has plans to dismiss a rear HHS employees. Typically tobacco would have been promoted to acting director, while Trump’s nominee was waiting for confirmation. However, the position was assigned to Dr. Matthew Memoli, a former top researcher at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a well -known critic of Covid vaccine mandates.
Tabak was part of a group of desk leaders, including Fauci and former NIH director Francis Collins, who accused Congressional Investigators of trying to manipulate the story about the origin of the COVID-19 virus. By means of GOP investigations it was established that tobacco was part of a controversial phone call with Fauci, Collins and various prominent scientists who argued critics, a catalyst for the publication of a scientific article that was released with a position was not plausible. A laboratory.
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Security personnel is a guard outside the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China. (Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty images)
He was also in the front and central when it came to Gop -probes In or risky profit-function research took place at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, and was confronted with criticism of slowly resolving the release of information requested by Republican researchers for these concerns.
Tobacco “(treated) with all the messy or unmanageable problem (s)” and was “often … The autumn man when things (went) sideways,” said Jeremy Berg, former director of NIH’s National Institute of General Medical Sciences, on Social media after news about the dismissal of tobacco. “Over the years, Larry has shifted so many s — that he would be well qualified to work behind the elephants in an old circus.”
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Fox News Digital reached for the NIH for comment, but did not receive a response to publication time.
