The Appalling Moral Failure of Francis Collins

“…Francis Collins, Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has just announced his intention to step down at the end of 2021 after more than 12 years heading the agency. The accolades are already rolling in. Noted evangelical political commentator David French, for example, rushed to praise Collins as “a national treasure.”

But Collins’s real legacy is anything but praiseworthy, and the tendency of figures in the faith community to ignore his real record is far from admirable.

This year of all years should have made the truth about Francis Collins clear. Last month, documents were released suggesting that top National Institutes of Health (NIH) officials may have lied when they denied that the NIH had funded “gain of function” research in Wuhan, China, that could have resulted in a pathogen that could infect humans.

After reviewing the documents, Rutgers University biologist Richard Ebright had a blistering response: “The documents make it clear that assertions by the NIH Director, Francis Collins, and the NIAID Director, Anthony Fauci, that the NIH did not support gain-of-function research or potential pandemic pathogen enhancement… are untruthful.”

It was another blow to the reputation of Collins in a year when his agency has faced multiple scandals and controversies.

Among evangelical Christians and other people of faith in America, Collins has long been the equivalent of a rock star. But Collins’s days of glory as a non-partisan role model, especially for the faith community, may be numbered — and it’s not just because of the latest scandal over the origins of COVID-19.

In recent months, Collins’s agency has become embroiled in controversies over its funding of stomach-churning medical experiments involving body parts harvested from aborted babies. The disclosures about the experiments followed Collins’s repeal earlier this year of restrictions on the use of aborted fetal tissue in NIH-funded research.

Collins has also stirred controversy with his increasingly shrill attacks on unvaccinated Americans and his support for harsh mandatory vaccination policies that will require the firing of employees who choose not to be vaccinated with a COVID-19 vaccine…”