Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, spent all year lying to Congress and Sen. Rand Paul about how his agency did not fund gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. But one of the most recent letters from Lawrence Tabak, principal deputy director of the National Institutes of Health, suggests otherwise.
Tabak recently wrote a letter to Rep. James Comer insisting that Fauci did fund a grant for research to enhance the ability of a bat coronavirus and that the NIH failed to prompt a review on the research.
In the letter, Tabak explains how the research plan from the Wuhan Lab did not fit the definition of research involving “enhanced pathogens of pandemic potential,” adding that the bat coronaviruses had not been shown to infect humans. He goes on to say that language was included in the terms of the grant for EcoHealth Alliance to conduct a secondary review of the research to determine whether the research aims should be “re-evaluated” or put under “new biosafety measures.”
“EcoHealth failed to report this finding right away, as required by the terms of the grant. EcoHealth is being notified that they have five days from today to submit to NIH any and all unpublished data from the experiments and work conducted under this award,” Tabak writes.
Tabak goes on to essentially confirm the gain of function research transmitting diseases between animals and humans despite consistent denials from Dr. Fauci about it. Sen. Rand Paul, a vocal critic of NIH and Dr. Fauci, emphasized how they are still trying to “get around the truth” to this day. He said Fauci should be fired for “lack of judgment,” if nothing else. He adds that Fauci will probably never admit he lied and that he will continue to “disassemble” and “stretch” the truth for as long as he can.
Even Richard Ebright, who heads the Waksman Institute of Microbiology at Rutgers University, said that the NIH, specifically NIH Director Francis Collins, Fauci, and Tabak, lied to Congress, the press, and the public. “Knowingly. Willfully. Brazenly,” Ebright tweeted.
Fauci, however, has pushed back on ABC’s “This Week” with host George Stephanopoulos that he never lied or misled about the research being funded by the NIH. He told Stephanopoulos that the controversy surrounding the research shows that the subcontractor had not “disclosed” some of the results in a timely manner.
Fauci went on to say that he disagrees with everything Sen. Paul said and that he never “lied” or “misled” about the research being done.
“The framework under which we have guidance about the conduct about the research that we fund, the funding at the Wuhan Institute, was to be able to determine what is out there in the environment in bat viruses in China. The research was very strictly under what we call a framework of oversight of the type of research. under those conditions which we have explained very, very clearly, does not constitute research of gain of function of concern,” Fauci said.
It’s clear that Fauci, the highest-paid government employee, is going to disassemble and stretch the truth for as long as he can, just as Sen. Paul said. There are videos from several years ago of Dr. Fauci talking about the “lessons learned” from gain-of-function research. He said it was worth the risk of a pandemic.
