Dr. Fauci is on the grill over origins of Covid

FPI / May 18, 2021

Under questioning from Sen. Rand Paul on May 11, Dr. Anthony Fauci repeatedly and adamantly denied that he and his National Institutes of Health (NIH) either funded or supported gain-of-function activities at the Wuhan lab which increasingly appears to be where Covid originated.

Numerous reports have revealed that Fauci-directed grant money indeed went to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Now, in a letter in the journal Science, 18 prominent biologists — including the world’s foremost coronavirus researcher — are calling for a new investigation of all possible origins of the coronavirus, and calling on China’s laboratories and agencies to “open their records” to independent analysis.

The biologists wrote: "A proper investigation should be transparent, objective, data-driven, inclusive of broad expertise, subject to independent oversight, and responsibly managed to minimize the impact of conflicts of interest. Public health agencies and research laboratories alike need to open their records to the public. Investigators should document the veracity and provenance of data from which analyses are conducted and conclusions drawn, so that analyses are reproducible by independent experts."

Several of those signing the letter have in the past called for greater scrutiny of gain-of-function research, in which viruses are genetically modified to make them more infectious or virulent. Experiments to engineer pathogens were ongoing at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Fauci "can keep downplaying the possibility that the pandemic began at a Chinese lab partially funded by a grantee of his government institute. But even Dr. Fauci’s numerous media admirers cannot prevent scientists from asking appropriate questions about the Wuhan Institute of Virology," the Wall Street Journal's James Freeman noted. "The whole world has a legitimate need to know what happened in that laboratory."

Answering a question about whether the Wuhan lab did any gain-of-function research, Fauci responded: “It is impossible for us to be aware of nor can we account for all of their activities.”

Writing for AND magazine on May 16, Charles Faddis noted: "Let’s forget for a moment that the sloppy lab practices in Wuhan were well known or that in general the tendency of studied organisms to escape from lab conditions and return to the 'wild' has been well documented. Let’s just focus on this question, what should Fauci, and his associates have reasonably assumed the Chinese were going to do with the new 'Frankenstein' viruses they were building?"

Fauci "made sure that funding continued to flow to a lab working specifically on developing viruses that could infect humans, be communicated human to human, and have deadly consequences," Faddis wrote. "He sent money from U.S. taxpayers to China either knowing that they could enhance Chinese biological weapons capabilities or not caring if they did. The recklessness is breathtaking. We paid to arm our adversary, and a great many Americans may have died as a result."

Trump White House adviser Peter Navarro noted that the case against Fauci "rests on nine indisputable facts."

"Is Dr. Anthony Fauci the father of the Wuhan virus? If that virus escaped from the Wuhan virology lab, it's the most ironic yes in all of American history," Peter Navarro wrote in a May 14 analysis for The National Pulse.

One: Fauci used NIH grant money to help fund the Wuhan Virology Lab.

Two: These American taxpayer funds were funneled to the Wuhan Lab through Peter Daszak and the New York City-based EcoHealth Alliance.

"Under the auspices of a nearly $3.7 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) – 'Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence' – 30 studies have been published since 2014. Over half of these studies count authors from Chinese Communist Party-run scientific organizations, and in 13 cases, the authors come from the Wuhan Institute of Virology," Navarro wrote.

The studies indicate the grant money went to both Daszak and Shi Zhengli, Director of the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases.

Three: Fauci, together with NIH Director Francis Collins, went behind the back of the Trump White House in December 2017 to overturn a 2014 Obama administration decision to ban the use of “gain-of-function” tools to increase the lethality of viruses – Australian journalist Sharri Markson has revealed Fauci used a “low level” White House meeting to fly below the radar.

Four: Before the pandemic hit, Daszak bragged in a TV interview about how simple it was to use gain-of-function at the Wuhan lab to make viruses more deadly.

Five: The Obama White House's National Security Council recommended banning gain-of-function research because of the high risk that a weaponized virus might escape from even the most secure labs.

Six: Deadly pathogens have routinely escaped from highest security labs, including a virus that escaped from the Beijing Virology Institute and caused the first SARS virus.

Seven: The U.S. State Department warned in 2018 about a lack of safety protocols at the Wuhan lab and the possibility that Wuhan sloppiness could trigger a second SARS outbreak.

Eight: Fauci’s NIH helped fund the research of Ralph Barric from the University of North Carolina who used gain-of-function techniques with China’s infamous “Bat Lady,” Wuhan Lab virologist Shi Zhengli.

Nine: Numerous experts now agree that Covid most likely originated from the Wuhan lab. These experts include former Centers for Disease Control Director Dr. Robert Redfield, CNN’s Sanjay Gupta, and Nicholas Wade, who has written what may well turn out to be the definitive case in support of the lab theory.

"In this case, because Fauci’s NIH funding did not go directly to the Wuhan lab but rather to the intermediaries of Daszak and Barric, Fauci wants us to believe his hands are clean," Navarro wrote. "Yet, Fauci likely knew about the research Daszak was conducting in Wuhan and that Barric was in close collaboration with the Wuhan Lab’s 'bat lady' — and if he didn’t, that’s even more grounds for his resignation."

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