Dr. Anthony Fauci’s claim that the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) did not fund a certain type of research in China was wrong, multiple government officials said in newly released interviews.
Dr. Fauci said while under oath in May 2021 that the NIH “has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the” Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). He held fast to that position when confronted by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) a month later.
Gain-of-function research is commonly known as research that increases a function of a pathogen, such as its transmissibility.
A U.S.-funded experiment carried out at the WIV before the COVID-19 pandemic made a bat coronavirus more virulent, the NIH disclosed in October 2021.
Dr. Hugh Auchincloss, a longtime adviser to Dr. Fauci, told the U.S. House of Representatives Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic that the common definition of gain-of-function covers “any research that attributes a new attribute to a biological agent,” according to a portion of one of the newly released interview transcripts.
When Dr. Fauci testified to Congress, the NIH defined gain-of-function research as research “that modifies a biological agent so that it confers new or enhanced activity to that agent.”
That definition was removed on the same day as the NIH disclosure.
Dr. Lawrence Tabak, another longtime official at the NIH, also told lawmakers that the definition covers the experiment outlined in the NIH disclosure, another transcript showed.
“It certainly is an example of generic ‘gain-of-function,’” Dr. Tabak said.
The experiment disclosed by the NIH was funded by money sent to WIV through the U.S.-based nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance.
The evidence obtained by the subcommittee “confirms that EcoHealth facilitated gain-of-function research at the WIV during the fifth year it received funding from the NIH,” the subcommittee said in a statement.
In a report on its investigation into the grant, the subcommittee added that “Dr. Fauci’s testimony to Senator Paul misled the public regarding NIH funding of gain-of-function research at the WIV.”
Dr. Fauci, the former head of the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, also testified to the panel. While the full transcript of that testimony has not been released, portions released Wednesday showed him being confronted on the matter.
He said that when he told Dr. Paul that the NIH never funded gain-of-function research, he was “referring specially to the operative definition of ‘gain-of-function’ at the time, which is the P3CO framework.”
The Framework for Guiding Funding Decisions about Proposed Research Involving Enhanced Potential Pandemic Pathogens, or the P3CO framework, was introduced in 2017 as U.S. officials lifted a funding pause on gain-of-function experiments involving certain viruses.
The framework excluded some gain-of-function research, focusing primarily on “potential pandemic pathogens,” or pathogens deemed “likely highly transmissible and likely capable of wide and uncontrollable spread in human populations” and “likely highly virulent and likely to cause significant morbidity and/or mortality in humans.”
Experiments enhancing such pathogens increased their transmissibility and/or virulence, according to the framework.
Dr. Paul had described testing done at WIV as being gain-of-function and asked Dr. Fauci, whose agency provided the grant to EcoHealth that sent some money to the lab, whether he still supported funding such research. “With all due respect, you are entirely incorrect—the NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain of function research in that institute.”
The NIH disclosure later in 2021 revealed that a modified bat coronavirus made mice sicker than the original virus, and killed more mice.
“The experiment that EcoHealth conducted by creating a chimera increased the pathogenicity of the underlying virus. Is that fair?” Dr. Fauci was asked by the House subcommittee more recently.
He said yes but that the virus being tested was not a potential pandemic pathogen.
When confronted with the statements by Drs. Auchincloss and Tabak, Dr. Fauci still refused to acknowledge the testing met the general gain-of-function definition.
“Because then, if I say yes, then, ‘Ah, yes, he says it was gain-of-function,’” he said.
Dr. Fauci, who stepped down as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in late 2022, is scheduled to appear at a public hearing held by the subcommittee on June 3.
From The Epoch Times
