White House coronavirus advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci argued that dangerous “gain-of-function” viral research was worth the risk of a pandemic, a claim that has resurfaced amid intense scrutiny of Fauci’s role in funding potentially similar experiments in Wuhan, China, for several years, The Australian reported on Friday.
In October 2012, Fauci wrote an article for the American Society for Microbiology, in which he said:
Putting aside the specter of bioterrorism for the moment, consider this hypothetical scenario: an important gain-of-function experiment involving a virus with serious pandemic potential is performed in a well-regulated, world-class laboratory by experienced investigators, but the information from the experiment is then used by another scientist who does not have the same training and facilities and is not subject to the same regulations. In an unlikely but conceivable turn of events, what if that scientist becomes infected with the virus, which leads to an outbreak and ultimately triggers a pandemic? Many ask reasonable questions: given the possibility of such a scenario — however remote — should the initial experiments have been performed and/or published in the first place, and what were the processes involved in this decision?
Scientists working in this field might say — as indeed I have said — that the benefits of such experiments and the resulting knowledge outweigh the risks. It is more likely that a pandemic would occur in nature, and the need to stay ahead of such a threat is a primary reason for performing an experiment that might appear to be risky.
In his testimony during the April 2012 Senate hearings dedicated to so-called Dual Use Research of Concern (DUSC) — which, according to the World Health Organization, is life-sciences research intended for good, but which could easily be used to do harm — Fauci advocated for such research.
Back then, Fauci argued that “the Administration continues to take oversight of such research very seriously and has recently strengthened procedures to mitigate any potential risks.”
Fauci went on to state,
Because of NIAID’s lead Federal role in supporting and conducting biodefense and emerging infectious diseases research, it can be expected that NIAID has funded and will fund some measure of DURC within its research portfolio. If a particular research experiment is identified as DURC, that designation does not necessarily mean that such research should be prohibited or avoided or not widely published.
Fauci then described the “grave concern” the National Institute of Health (NIH) had over the influenza virus, and concluded that “it is important to conduct research to address host adaptability to viruses, transmissibility within and among species, and the effect of these processes on pathogenesis,” adding, “the knowledge of a particular genetic mutation or set of mutations that facilitates influenza transmission in humans may be crucial for use in global surveillance of emerging pandemic influenza viruses.”
In 2014, two years after Fauci’s defense of the high-stakes research, the U.S. government deemed the work so dangerous it put moratorium on it, which was set to expire in 2017. According to longtime journalist and former New York Times science writer Nicholas Wade, Fauci circumvented the U.S. moratorium and supported gain-of-function research with grant money from the NIAID funneled through EcoHealth Alliance.
“From June 2014 to May 2019 EcoHealth Alliance had a grant from NIAID, part of the National Institutes of Health, to do gain-of-function research with coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology [WIV],” Wade reported.
Apparently, NIAID did this by exploiting a loophole in the moratorium stating that “an exception from the research … may be obtained if the head of the USG [U.S. government] funding agency determines that the research is urgently necessary to protect the public health or national security.”
Wade believes that this means that either the director of the NIAID, Anthony Fauci; or the director of the NIH, Francis Collins; or maybe both, would have invoked the exemption in order to keep the money flowing to WIV research, and later to avoid notifying the federal reporting system of the research.
In addition to that, it is known that China’s leading expert on bat viruses, Shi Zheng-li, aka “Bat Lady,” collaborated with Ralph S. Baric, an eminent coronavirus researcher at the University of North Carolina. Their work, focused on enhancing the ability of bat viruses to attack humans so as to “examine the emergence potential (that is, the potential to infect humans) of circulating bat CoVs [coronaviruses],” was described as “gain-of-function” by 200 scientists who raised ethical concerns about it.
Last week, Dr. Fauci adamantly asserted during Senate hearings that the NIH was not involved in “gain-of-function” research at WIV, even though the NIH approved “modest” funding on coronavirus research — which may be as much as $41.7 million.
Then Fauci admitted, however, that he can’t “guarantee” that the funds didn’t go to gain-of-function research.
He noted that Chinese scientists he knew were “trustworthy,” and that he would expect that “they would abide by the conditions of the grant,” and said that the NIH looks at published WIV studies to determine what the institute was doing with the NIH funding.
Given the revelations of the past couple of weeks, SARS-CoV-2 that causes COVID-19 may not be just “the China virus,” but a product of the many years of coronavirus gain-of-function research supported by Dr. Fauci and funded by U.S. taxpayers, and the lab leak “conspiracy theory” may soon become a proven fact.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, who has been regarded by many as a COVID guru since the outbreak, will have many questions to answer, such as why he accepted his role as coronavirus advisor when he and his institute seem to be partially responsible for the development of the virus. Or why he insisted that the virus had emerged in nature, when he knew Chinese scientists manipulated it in a lab, and even advocated for such research himself. Fauci also must have known that the lab leaks “happen all the time.” Provided that he must have known or suspected what was going on the minute reports emerged of a coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan lab, why did he consistently downplay the risks early on?
Last but not least, if the director of NIAID probably was not the one who decided on cooperation with Communist China on weaponizing a deadly virus, then whose call was it?
Given the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on America and the whole world, some serious storm clouds are gathering above Fauci’s head. It is likely that the notorious doctor may soon be thrown under the bus to cover up for those who actually are responsible for the pandemic and its aftermath.
