NIH official’s statements to Congress ‘are demonstrably false’
Art Moore
WND News Center
Testifying Wednesday before the Senate, a prominent health scientist charged that Dr. Anthony Fauci and other federal health officials have repeatedly lied to Congress about the government’s funding of gain-of-function research in China, which is believed by many experts to be the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dr. Richard Ebright, a professor of molecular biology at Rutgers University, said statements “made on repeated occasions to the public, to the press and to policymakers by the NIAID director, Dr. Fauci, have been untruthful.”
“I do not understand why those statements are being made because they are demonstrably false,” he said.
Sen. Josh Hawley: "Are you concerned with the continuation and expansion of Chinese gain-of-function research?"
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) August 3, 2022
Dr. Quay: "They were doing synthetic biology on a cloning vector of the Nipah virus, which is 60% lethal. We just experienced a 1% lethal virus…" pic.twitter.com/ydeY1Gj8OE
The hearing, “Revisiting Gain-of-Function Research: What the Pandemic Taught Us and Where Do We Go From Here,” was held by the Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee’s Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Spending Oversight.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., the panel’s ranking member, has sparred over the issue in numerous Senate hearings with Fauci, who has insisted the NIH has not funded gain-of-function research in China despite evidence to the contrary.
Ebright was among the 16 scientists who authored a letter published last September in the prestigious British science journal The Lancet calling for another look at the evidence that the pandemic began with a lab leak. The scientists condemned a February 2020 letter organized by Wuhan lab collaborator Peter Daszak marginalizing anyone who entertained the lab-leak theory as a conspiracist. Ebright and his 15 colleagues said Daszak’s letter and a subsequent missive had “a silencing effect on the wider scientific debate, including among science journalists.” Fauci received an email from Daszak at the time thanking the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases director for supporting him on his dismissal of the lab-leak theory.
In his testimony Wednesday, Ebright argued that research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology funded by the National Institutes of Health to increase the lethality and transmissibility of bat coronaviruses fits the definition of gain-of-function research.
“Gain-of-function research of concern involves the creation of new health threats – health threats that did not exist previously and that might not have come to exist by natural means for tens, hundreds, thousands or tens of thousands of years,” Ebright said.
In an exchange with Paul during a Senate hearing in May 2021, Fauci stated emphatically that the NIH “has not ever and does not now fund gain of function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”
Another witness was Dr. Steven Quay, whose research became part of a State Department probe of the origin of COVID-19 under President Trump. Quay, chief executive officer at Atossa Therapeutics Inc., co-wrote a Wall Street Journal column last December citing four studies, including two from the World Health Organization, that provide strong evidence for the lab-leak theory. One study, published by Nature Medicine, concluded the original SARS-CoV-2 pathogen was 99.5% optimized for human infection, which is strong confirmation of the lab-leak hypothesis.
Quay was asked Wednesday by Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., if he was concerned about the expansion of Chinese gain-of-function research.
Quay pointed out that in December 2019, Chinese researchers were “doing synthetic biology on a cloning vector of the Nipah virus, which is 60% lethal.”
“We just experienced a 1% lethal virus,” he said, referring to SARS-CoV-2.
Noting the Black Plague was a 20% lethal event that set the world back 250 years, a pandemic of the Nipah virus, in his estimation, would “set us back a millennium.”
The Nipah virus is associated with encephalitis, a severe swelling of the brain.
Quay’s Seattle-based Atossa Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing novel therapeutics for oncology and infectious diseases.
Kevin M. Esvelt, assistant professor of media arts and sciences at MIT Media Lab, testified that U.S. funding of gain-of-function – which he described as “asymmetric tools of mass death” – is creating perverse incentives for China.Esvelt, in a Washington Post op-ed titled “Manipulating viruses risking pandemics is too dangerous,” countered a 2011 Washington Post op-ed by Fauci and Collins that gain-of-function research is “A flu virus risk worth taking.”
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Fauci’s lies, self-contradiction, denials, subterfuge, and blame shifting have become behavioral traits that seem to come so naturally to him! In fact, many have come to expect it – no surprises there! I wonder how much time he has actually spent in labs over the years, doing real work? He does not seem to have any depth of understanding in molecular/cellular biology, virology, immunology. Rather odd for such an exalted position.
Publc trust is like a reservoir that must be nurtured. As far as Fauci and Biden are concerned, public trust is waning and perhaps close to depletion.
The above article will, I hope, increase public interest in the intricacies of the plandemic. The differences between the natural virus and the artificial virus raise valid questions.
The session summarized below provides factual scientific information – I watched it twice.
A panel of scientists and academics discussed the risks and benefits of gain of function research before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Emerging Threats. According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), gain of function research involves the genetic modification and experimentation of viruses and pathogens to increase strength and transmissibility.
The bipartisan approach on this subject is long overdue and will hopefully signal the beginning of positive change.
Thank you to Senator Rand Paul, the three talented scientists, and all the other politicians who participated.
As you are well aware, there will be those who continue to deny this and poke holes in the evidence. They are so desperate to not believe they have been absolutely lied to the last two plus years. .and bought into it. They cling to their masks like belles cling to their pearls. How much more evidence do people need?
‘Belles clinging to pearls’ (deserves a chuckle). And blokes clutching beer cans? Ha ha, not as pretty!
Such dogmatism is a symptom of cognitive inflexibility. Their choice, their responsibility for any consequences. Globally, infection rates have soared in concert with high jab numbers. The so-called ‘poor nations’ have less positive cases. Interesting and undeniable.
Sad situation, though.
To blame new variants is a lame excuse that will not last the test of time.
No solution can suceed until
the real problem(s) is/are fully identified and addressed.
The change process follows a long and winding road of transition – difficul and painful. To undo bad, acquired habits is but one example. People who nurture the inherent capabilities of the human body are often derided, sneered at. So be it. Many, if not most, have maintained their wellness; those who did catch Covid19 recovered. Let’s persist and be grateful that it is working so positively for us.
You’re correct regarding the masks. I just saw an article about how a lot of people are saying they’re going to pass on the flu shot this year and instead wear masks through flu season. These people are absolutely insane. Masks have become like a security blanket for people with irrational fears.
Wolfie, many, many know. You won’t see us on most sm… White house, Silicon Valley, Pfizer makes damn sure of that. I have been kicked off, shadow banned etc for simply speaking truth
Thank goodness for courageous Doctors like Ebright and Quay and many others! Everyone should read the RFK Jr book-Faucian lies–it is eye opening! We The People have been lied to and manipulated by the likes of Fauci and Collins and all their truly evil cronies and it is just a means for them all to make money, with Mr. Eugenics Gates. And there is NO vaccine for Sars-1 and Sars-2 or MERS etc!!!!!–vaccines for polio and smallpox really work! Someday these idiots and evil guys and all their political cronies will have their day in court.
CHD is good!
Children being killed by Pfizer deathvax