At a Senate health committee hearing on Tuesday, May 11, 2021, Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Dr. Anthony Fauci got into a heated debate over whether funding from the National Institutes of Health was used for risky “gain-of-function” research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Transcript
Senator Rand Paul: Dr. Fauci, we don’t know whether the pandemic started in a lab in Wuhan or evolve naturally, but we should want to know. 3 million people have died from this pandemic and that should cause us to explore all possibilities. Instead government authorities, self interested in continuing gain-of-function research, say there’s nothing to see here. Gain-of-function research, as you know, is juicing up naturally-occurring animal viruses to infect humans. To arrive at the truth, the U.S. government should admit that the Wuhan Virology Institute was experimenting to enhance the coronaviruses ability to infect humans. Juicing up super viruses is not new. Scientist in the U.S. have long known how to mutate animal viruses to infect humans. For years Dr. Ralph Baric, a virologist in the U.S., has been collaborating with Doctor Shi Zhengli of the Wuhan Virology Institute, sharing his discoveries about how to create super viruses. This gain-of-function research has been funded by the NIH. The collaboration between the U.S. and the Wuhan Virology Institute continues. Doctors Baric and Shi worked together to insert bat virus spike protein into the backbone of the deadly SARS virus and then used this man-made super virus to infect human airway cells. Think about that for a moment. The SARS virus had a 15% mortality. We’re fighting a pandemic that has about a 1% mortality. Can you imagine if they SARs virus that’s been juiced up and had viral proteins added to it, to the spike protein, if that were released accidentally. Dr. Fauci, do still support funding of the NIH funding of the lab in Wuhan?
Dr. Anthony Fauci: Senator Paul, With all due respect, you are entirely and completely incorrect. That the NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Senator Rand Paul: Do they fund Dr. Baric?
Dr. Anthony Fauci: We do not fund gain . . .
Senator Rand Paul: Do you fund Dr. Baric’s gain-of-function research?
Dr. Anthony Fauci: Dr. Baric does not doing gain-of-function research, and if it is, it is according to the guidelines and is being conducted in North Carolina not in China.
Senator Rand Paul: You don’t think inserting a bat virus spike protein that he got from the Wuhan Institute into the SARS virus is gained a function.
Dr. Anthony Fauci: That is not
Senator Rand Paul: You would be in the minority because at least two hundred scientists have signed a statement from the Cambridge Working Group saying that it is gain-of-function.
Dr. Anthony Fauci: Well, it is not and if look at the grant and if you look at the progress reports, it is not gain-of-function, despite the fact that people tweet that, write about it . . .
Senator Rand Paul: So do you still support sending money to the Wuhan Virology Institute?
Dr. Anthony Fauci: We do not send money now to Wuhan Virology Institute.
Senator Rand Paul: Do you support sending money. We did under your tutelage. We were sending it through Eco Health. It was a sub agency and a sub grant. Do you support that the money from NIH that was going to the Wuhan Virology Institute.
Dr. Anthony Fauci: Let me explain to you why that was done. the SARSCOV-1 originated in bats in China. It would have been irresponsible of us if we did not investigate the bat viruses and the serology to see who might have been infected in China.
Senator Rand Paul: Or perhaps it would be possible to send it to the Chinese government, that we not be able to trust with this knowledge and with this incredibly dangerous viruses. Government scientist like yourself who favor gain-of-function research . . .
Dr. Anthony Fauci: I don’t favor gain-of-function research in China, you are saying things that are not correct.
Senator Rand Paul: Government defenders of gain-of-function research, such as yourself, say that covid-19 mutations were random and not designed by man. But the technique that interesting Dr. Baric developed forces mutations by serial passage through cell culture that the mutations appear to be natural. In fact Dr. Baric named the technique the no-see-um technique because the of mutations appear naturally. Nicholas Baker of the New York magazine said, “nobody would know if the virus had been fabricated in a laboratory or grown in nature. Governing authorities in the U.S., including yourself, unequivocally deny that covid-19 could have escaped the lab, but even Dr. Shi in Wuhan wasn’t so sure. According to Nicholas Baker Dr. Shi wondered, could this new virus have come from her own laboratory? She checked her records frantically and found no matches. That really took a load off my mind, she said. I had not slept for days. The director of The gain-of-function research in Wuhan couldn’t sleep because she was terrified that it might be in her lab. Dr. Baric, an advocate of gain-of-function research, admits the main problem at The Institute of Virology has is that the outbreak occurred in close proximity. What are the odds? Baric responded, could you rule out a laboratory escape? The answer in this case is probably not. will you in front of this group categorically say that the covid-19 could not have occurred through serial passive in a laboratory?
Dr. Anthony Fauci: I do not have any accounting of what the Chinese may have done, and I am fully in favor of any further investigation of what went on in China. However, I will repeat again, the NIH and NIAID categorically has not funded gain-of-function research to be conducted in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Senator Rand Paul: You did support it in the U.S. and we have 11 labs doing it and you have allowed it here. We have a committee to do it. But the committee has granted every exemption. You’re, you’re fooling with Mother Nature here. You’re allowing super viruses to be created with a 15% mortality. It’s very dangerous and was a huge mistake to share this with China and it’s a huge mistake to allow this to continue the United States, and we should be very careful to investigate where this virus came from.
Dr. Anthony Fauci: I fully agree that you should investigate where the virus came from, but again, we have not funded gain-of-function research on this virus in the Wuhan Institute of Virology no matter how many times you say.
There was research done with Dr. Shi and Dr. Baric. They have collaborated on gain-of-function research where they enhanced the SARS virus to infect human airways cells and they did it by merging a new spike protein on it. That is gain of function, that was joint research between the Wuhan Institute and Dr. Baric, you can’t deny it.
