"You won't admit that it's dangerous, and for that lack of judgment I think it's time that you resign."
The NIH did fund gain-of-function in Wuhan. Even the Chinese authors in their paper admit that viruses not found in nature were created, and yes, they gained in infectivity. Your persistent denials are not just a stain on your reputation but are a clear and present danger to the country and to the world. As Professor Kevin Esvelt of MIT has written, gain-of-function research looks like a gamble that civilization can't afford to risk. And yet here you are again steadfast in your denials. Why does it matter? Because gain-of-function research with laboratory-created viruses not found in nature could cause a pandemic even worse the next time. We're suffering today from one that has a mortality of approximately one percent that are experimenting with viruses that have mortalities that have approximately 15 and 50%. Yes, our civilization could be at risk from one of these viruses. Experiments that combine unknown viruses with known pandemic-causing viruses are incredibly risky. Experiments that combine unknown viruses with coronaviruses that have as much as 50% mortality could endanger civilization as we know it. And here you sit, unwilling to accept any responsibility for the current pandemic and unwilling to take any steps to prevent gain-of-function research from possibly unleashing an even more deadly virus. You mislead the public by saying that the published viruses could not be COVID. Well, exactly no one is alleging that. No one is alleging that the published viruses by the Chinese are COVID. What we are saying is that this was risky type of research, gain-of-function research, that it was risky to share this with the Chinese, and that COVID may have been created from a not-yet revealed virus. We don't anticipate that the Chinese are going to reveal the virus if it came from their lab. You know that but you continue to mislead. You continue to support NIH money going to Wuhan. You continue to say that you trust the Chinese scientists. You appear to have learned nothing from this pandemic. Will you today, finally, take some responsibility for funding gain-of-function research in Wuhan?
FAUCI, 2:52 Senator, with all due respect, I disagree with so many things that you've said. First of all, gain-of-function is a very nebulous term. We have spent, not us but outside bodies, a considerable amount of effort to give a more precise definition to the type of research that is of concern that might lead to a dangerous situation. You are aware of that. That is called P3CO
PAUL, 3:27 We're aware that you've deleted "gain-of-function" from the NIH website.
FAUCI, 3:30 Well, I can get back to that if we have time. But let's get back to the operating framework and guide[rails] of which we operate under. [wow, Fauci is carefully sparsing out his words.] And you have ignored them. The guidelines are very, very clear. That you have to be dealing with a pathogen that has shown, and very likely, to be highly transmissible in an uncontrollable way in humans and to have a high degree of morbidity and mortality and that you do experiments to enhance that. Hence the word, EPPP, Enhanced Potential Pandemic Pathogens.
PAUL, 4:08 So when EcoHealth Alliance took the virus SHC-014 and combined it with WIV1 caused a recombinant virus, that doesn't exist in nature, and it made mice sicker, mice that had humanized cells, you're saying that that's not gain-of-function research?
FAUCI, 4:25 According to the framework and guidelines,
PAUL, 4:27 So what you're doing is defining away gain-of-function. You're simply saying it doesn't exist because you changed the definition on the NIH website. This is terrible, and you're completely trying to escape the idea that we should do something about trying to prevent a pandemic from leaking from a lab. There's a preponderance of evidence now that points to this coming from the lab, and what you've done is change the definition on your website to try to cover your ass basically. That's what you've done--you've changed the website to try to change the definition that doesn't include the risky research that is going on. Until you admit that it's risky, we're not going to get anywhere. You have to admit that this was risky. The NIH has now rebuked them. Your own agency has rebuked them. But the thing is that you're still unwilling to admit that they gained in function when they say "they became sicker," They gained in lethality. That's a new virus. That's not gain-of-function?
FAUCI, 5:20 According to the definition that is currently operable . . . you know, Senator, let's make it clear for the people who are listening. The current definition was done over a two-to-three-year period by outside bodies, including NSABB, two conferences by the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine [National Academies] on December 2014 to March 2016, we commissioned external risk-benefit assessment. And then on January of 2017, the Office of Science and Technology of the White House issued the current policy
PAUL, 6:06 The definition appeared on the same day that the NIH said that, yes, there was a gain-of-function in Wuhan, the same day the definition appeared, the new definition to try to define away what's going on in Wuhan. Until you accept it, until you accept responsibility we're not going to get anywhere close to try and prevent another lab leak of this dangerous sort of experiment. You won't admit that it's dangerous, and for that lack of judgment I think it's time that you resign.
Dracula negotiating the definition of what bite means.
— Mike Walgenbach (@mwalgen44) November 4, 2021
Rand Paul should never run for president again. He's much more valuable in the senate.
— Moved to Florida (@not_retired) November 4, 2021
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