Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) slammed Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the Chief Medical Advisor to the President, on Sunday over a new letter from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) about whether the NIH ever funded gain of function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
On Wednesday, the NIH sent a letter to members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce that acknowledged two facts. One was that EcoHealth Alliance, a New York City–based nonprofit that partners with far-flung laboratories to research and prevent the outbreak of emerging diseases, did indeed enhance a bat coronavirus to become potentially more infectious to humans, which the NIH letter described as an “unexpected result” of the research it funded that was carried out in partnership with the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The second was that EcoHealth Alliance violated the terms of its grant conditions stipulating that it had to report if its research increased the viral growth of a pathogen by tenfold.
Paul was asked about the revelation during an interview with Axios that aired on Sunday, to which Paul responded, “I think that people across the country are very disturbed at how much he’s lied, basically.”
“We have brand new news today, you know, that says that the NIH is now admitting that there was gain of function research there, and he lied about it,” Paul said. “And so in the letter, they acknowledge that, yes, the viruses did gain in function, they became more dangerous. So they’ve created a virus that doesn’t exist in nature to become more dangerous. That is gain of function. Now they try to justify it by saying, well it was an unexpected result. I’m not sure I buy that. Think about it, you take an unknown virus, you combine it with another virus, and you get a super-virus, you have no idea whether it gains functions or loses function. That’s what the experiment is. But I don’t know how anybody could argue that that’s not gain of function research.”
Paul called for President Joe Biden to fire Fauci for “a lack of judgement, if nothing else” and said that Senate Republicans are “calling for an investigation and hearings.”
.@RandPaul says Biden should fire Fauci over U.S.-funded research in Wuhan "just for lack of judgment, if nothing else."
Fauci fired back at Paul's #AxiosOnHBO interview, telling @ThisWeekABC his criticism implies the research led to COVID-19, which is "molecularly impossible." pic.twitter.com/d4DHkYpOD9
— Axios (@axios) October 24, 2021
AXIOS: You’re running for re-election this year; you just set a record for your quarterly fundraising for a Senate race. And one of your donation pages says, “Fire Dr. Fauci.” How helpful has that been?
SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY): You know, I think that people across the country are very disturbed at how much he’s lied, basically. That he’s in charge of–
AXIOS: You’ve gone at it in hearings.
PAUL: Yeah, we’re still going at it. We have brand new news today, you know, that says that the NIH is now admitting that there was gain of function research there, and he lied about it.
AXIOS: So, this is a letter from the National Institutes of Health to Congress, and it acknowledges funding research in Wuhan that you and Dr. Fauci have gone at it about.
PAUL: Right. And so in the letter, they acknowledge that, yes, the viruses did gain in function, they became more dangerous. So they’ve created a virus that doesn’t exist in nature [that’s] become more dangerous. That is gain of function. Now they try to justify it by saying, well it was an unexpected result. I’m not sure I buy that. Think about it, you take an unknown virus, you combine it with another virus, and you get a super-virus, you have no idea whether it gains functions or loses function. That’s what the experiment is. But I don’t know how anybody could argue that that’s not gain of function research.
AXIOS: So, senator, you had a hot tweet, you said, “I told you so doesn’t even begin to cover it here.” What should happen next?
PAUL: Well, he should be fired. I mean, the thing is–
AXIOS: Dr. Fauci should be fired?
PAUL: Absolutely.
AXIOS: By the president?
PAUL: Absolutely. The thing is, is just for a lack of judgement, if nothing else. You know, he’s probably never going to admit that he lied. He’s going to continue to dissemble and try to work around the truth and massage the truth.
AXIOS: Let me go out on a limb. President Biden is not going to fire Dr. Fauci. So what can Congress do? Or what are you going to try to do?
PAUL: We’re calling for an investigation and hearings on this. We’ve been calling for that for months. But you’re right. There’s been a great deal of resistance on the Democrat side, but would we not want to know the origin of the virus, and to know if it came from a lab, particularly since this research still goes on?
Story cited here.
