Senator Paul argues that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded so-called "gain of function" research—a process involves enhancing a virus in a lab to study its potential impact in the real world—at a lab in Wuhan.
NIH and NIAID have said they supported grants to research viruses in bats and mammals, but had never approved any grant supporting gain-of-function research on coronaviruses that would have increased their transmissibility or lethality for humans.
“Dr. Fauci, as you are aware it is a crime to lie to Congress,” Paul began during the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions hearing Tuesday, reminding Fauci of his previous remarks to the committee on May 11th, during which the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) director stated that the NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain of function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
“And yet, gain-of-function research was done entirely in the Wuhan Institute … and was funded by the NIH,” Paul said, citing Wuhan Virology paper entitled, “Discovery of a Rich Gene Pool of Bat SARS-Related Coronaviruses.”
“In this paper … she credits the NIH and lists the actual number of the grant that she was given by the NIH,” Paul said. “In this paper, she took two bat coronavirus genes, spiked genes, and combined them with a SARS-related backbone to create new viruses that are not found in nature.” (Read more from “Rand Paul and Anthony Fauci Clash on NIH Funding In Wuhan: ‘It Is a Crime To Lie to Congress’” HERE)
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