Over the weekend, Russell Vought, Chief Theocrat and head of OMB, launched a nonsensical rant about NIH. Many arguments on behalf of NIH, and they’re not wrong, focus on long-term research that ultimately pans out years or decades later. But there’s a much more direct outcome that seems to have been forgotten.

What I have found frustrating is that, during the COVID pandemic, NIAID (NIH) played an integral role in the development of a vaccine in record breaking time that saved at a minimum, one million U.S. lives (according to the House COVID report, “millions”, plural, of U.S. lives were saved). I realize Republicans are refractory to evidence when it comes to anything to do with COVID, but it wasn’t the Department of Defense or the Department of Homeland Security that did this.

It was the NIH, along with other HHS agencies like BARDA. And as a reward, a significant percentage of the population–mostly Republicans, including very prominent ones–decided to embrace conspiracy theories, all of which are mutually exclusive of course, about how NIH (and TONY FAUCI! BOOGA! BOOGA!) caused the pandemic, and thus needs to be reformed punished. While some of this is a cynical ploy–every dollar not spent on NIH is another dollar for tax breaks for the wealthy (and, Gritty forbid, people recognize government did something good)–many Republicans are true believers. But, like creationism, it’s bullshit. It’s our responsibility to remember what really happened and remind other people of this.