Local Dad “Doing His Own Research” on COVID Vaccination Nabs NIH Grant
When local father Mike Jones said that he would be doing his own research on vaccination, his small suburban town thought they had heard it all before. “I thought he was just going to email me some PragerU infographics until he got aggravated or until I turned on the Bears game,” remarked his wife, Carol. “I didn’t think he would actually go out and get an NIH-funded project in infectious disease.”
However, not everyone in the scientific community is happy about Jones’s new appointment. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) internship at the CDC is highly coveted in the field of infectious disease. When a formerly mask-agnostic suburban man received the internship simply by showing up, other researchers, namely his son, were none too pleased. “I don’t know how he managed to get that internship at the CDC,” remarked his indignant son, Peter, a third year premed, “The professor in my lab calls me ‘beaker bitch,’ and I had to grovel for weeks to even get that. It’s so competitive to get even unpaid research experience, but he just kind of Elle Woods-ed it. ”
A pedantic premed at the Shady Dealer consulted with Jones to learn his secret. “I walked in with the unbridled confidence that only an under-qualified, middle-aged, white man from Naperville could possess,” said Jones, “I said that I wanted to do my own research. They called my bluff and put me on the bench. I run their titers for 12 hours a day now. I thought these egg-heads just sat around all day, brainstorming how to take away my Outback Steakhouse Sunday Dinner.”
His supervisor remarked that she was pleasantly surprised by Jones’s work ethic and data quality once he stopped talking about Ivermectin. Jones has also shown proclivity for scientific communication, raising the vaccination rate of his fantasy football league twofold. Some of the dads on the cul-de-sac are still skeptical, however. “The commies got Mike! It’s the damn 5G mind-control chip,” commented local dad and self-proclaimed ‘Truth Warrior,’ Chuck Buck.
Jones suggested Buck apply for his own NIH funding to quell any concerns over the scientific basis of vaccines. “Sometimes you just need to go out and do the research on your own. Hopefully, NIH can provide him the proper facilities and financing to get to the right answer – just as it did for me. That’s our only difference now.”
Drew Landrowski
Director of Special Projects, 2019-20
