Dr. Fauci has refused to budge concerning his narrative this Sunday when he was confronted about a new letter from the NIH, which seemingly admitted the agency worked in gain-of-function research at the Chinese Wuhan Virology Institute.
Throughout the pandemic — and in many notable exchanges with Republican Senator Rand Paul (Ky.) — Fauci denied that the NIH funded gain-of-function research at the Chinese bio lab.
In one instance, Fauci told Senator Paul during a congressional hearing back in May:
“I do not have an account of what the Chinese could have done, and I fully support any further investigation of what happened in China. However, I will repeat again, the NIAID and NIH categorically has not funded gain-of-function research to be done in the China-based Wuhan Virology Institute.”
However one top NIH official — principal deputy dr. Dr. Lawrence Tabak — published a letter last week that seemingly admitted to funding the risky research.
What did Fauci say after the letter?
During his interview on ABC’s “This Week,” Fauci refused to say if he was less than forthcoming about the NIH research funding.
In response to Senator Paul taking a victory lap after this letter being releases, Fauci said Paul was still wrong.
“Well, I obviously completely disagree with Senator Paul. He is absolutely incorrect. Neither I nor Dr. Francis Collins, lied about what we have done,” Fauci said.
Fauci went on:
“The framework under which we have the guidance concerning the research we fund, the funding at the Chinese Wuhan Institute was to be able to decide what is in the environment, within China. And the research was very strict under what we called a framework of oversight on the kind of research. And under these conditions which we have described very clearly does not mean gain-of-function research.”
When asked by George Stephanopoulos about if the NIH letter proves that the NIH worked in riskier research than what its officials had admitted — Fauci kept his position.
“No, it is not. We knew what risk was, and what the oversight was,” he said.
Fauci, in fact, said the real issue is that people do not know the definition of gain-of-function.
“When people speak about gain-of-function, they make the implication which I believe is unconscionable to say that the research led to SARS-CoV-2,” Fauci stated. “You can ask anyone of good faith who is a virologist, and they will say, absolutely clearly, that would be impossible molecularly.”
Author: Scott Dowdy