Rand Paul hosted Wednesday’s first hearing in Congress on Gain-of-function Research and Oversight. The Homeland Security subcommittee hearing was attended by five Republican Senators, but no Democrats.
On the heels of a Senator’s proposal to end US funding of China gain-of-function research, the hearing will take place. Democrats blocked Paul’s amendment, although it had been supported in earlier versions of the legislative package on domestic semiconductor manufacturing.
Gain-of function (GOF), is research which improves the pathogen’s ability to cause disease. Paul is a critic of National Institute of Health’s (NIH) funding of this Wuhan, China laboratory in advance of the coronavirus outbreak.
Research on gain of function has the potential for triggering a pandemic, which could threaten the lives of many millions. However this is the first time that the topic has been brought up in a Congressional Committee.
— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) August 3, 2022
Anthony Fauci is the director of NIAID and Chief Medical advisor to President. He denies the Wuhan-based research constitutes GOF research. First Fauci denies to Congress that the NIH was founded in Wuhan. Never funded anyonePaul, in 2021, specifically questioned Wuhan about GOF research. Except that the NIH unambiguously Did They also funded GOH research in Wuhan and coronavirus research.
In June, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a recommendation that more investigation be done into the theory that COVID-19 came from a Chinese “lab-leak,” a reversal after downplaying the possibility last year.
Obama declared a moratorium in 2014 on GOF-related research. However, NIH projects were continued despite bans and HHS requests for pause activity. The moratorium was lifted by President Donald Trump in 2017. A HHS oversight committee was created. Proposed research Participating Enhanced Potential Pandemic Disease Pathogens (P3CO).
The hearing by the subcommittee highlighted issues with the P3CO framework;Republican Senators and testimony scientists both agreed that the definition of GOF research was too narrow to allow for proper oversight of research proposals. This is how Fauci was able to slyly deny the research that we have taxpayer receipts for. Semantics are also funded by the taxpayer.
Another issue discussed was that members of P3CO are not disclosed, leading to ethical questions about potential conflicts of interest… or what the committee even does, or when. We don’t know who these people are, and Congress doesn’t know who these people are, either.
After Wednesday’s hearing, Paul appeared on Fox News’ “Jesse Watters Primetime” saying,
We also learned from the scientists today that the committee that is supposed to review these viruses is secret. We don’t know the names. We don’t know that they ever meet, and we don’t have any records of their meetings. It’s top-secret. Congress can’t know. So whether the committee actually exists, we’re uncertain. We do know that they’ve met three times and there are thousands of Proposals for gain-of function research. They’ve only met three times, they’ve only reviewed three projects. So we learned a lot of things, but I think we reconfirmed that Dr. Fauci is not being honest with us. The answer is yes. Gain-of-function funded by the NIH research. It was indeed dangerous. And yes, nobody looked over this.
Paul continued to call out Fauci’s dishonesty and implore more scientific oversight into research deemed “dangerous” by experts who testified,
It was revealed that Dr. Fauci had been lying to them. All three scientists concurred that it was dangerous research. The three scientists agreed that it was dangerous research. gain-of-function. It was third. Research that could prove to be dangerous and should have gone before a committee. When Dr. Fauci said, “Oh, we’ve reviewed this and the experts have looked at this, and said it’s not gain-of-function,” even that wasn’t true.
Paul said that he was disappointed by the absence of Democrats participation during the hearing and hopes to introduce a bipartisan bill for GOF oversight and funding.
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